Independent Double Observer Survey

NRES 896 Abundance Estimation

Getting ready
Go to the class data folder on the Y: drive and copy the folder “dobserv” to your own
directory. This folder contains the software and the data file we will be using. It is also
available on BLACKBOARD–as a ZIPPED folder (you will need to extract it).

In the DOBSERV folder, click on the text file with our data: Doduck_survey.txt

It should open in Notepad and look like this:

fake duck data 100wetlands 2 species miss=0.4 obs1=0.7 obs2=0.5

1, mallard, 0, 6, 0
1, bluewing, 0, 4, 0
1, mallard, 2, 0, 6
1, bluewing, 1, 0, 1
1, mallard, 5, 0, 0
1, bluewing, 7, 0, 0
1, mallard, 1, 0, 1
1, bluewing, 0, 0, 0
1, mallard, 0, 6, 0

The file, as the heading indicates, represents a completely fake set of duck survey data,
collected by fake researchers driving individual, fake trucks. Thus, the data was
collected INDEPENDENTLY. Each fake researcher drove a route that ran past 100
fake wetlands, which had 0-10 fake mallards and 0-10 fake bluewing teal. The
researchers noted the number of ducks that they saw on each wetland. In the
simulation used to create the data, each researcher had a 40% chance of completely
missing the wetland. If s/he saw the wetland, observer #1 observed 70% of the ducks
on the wetland. Observer #2 observed 50% of ducks on the wetland, if s/he saw the
wetland. Duck species were noted separately.

The columns in the data set above indicate:

1: a dummy column (no information indicated by the “1")

2: the species seen
3: number of that species seen by observer 1, but not by observer 2
4: number of that species seen by observer 2, but not by observer 1
5: number of that species seen by both observers

Running the analysis in DOBSERV

Open the DOBSERV folder, and double-click on the EXE file: DOBSERV.EXE to run the
software. This is a front-end program for the program SURVIV, which will put our data
in a format for a mark-recapture analysis in SURVIV.
Click on the button that appears with “STEP 1" on it.

When asked for the data file, browse to the DO_ducksurvey.csv file, and click “OPEN”.

When prompted, click YES for INDEPENDENT DATA.

When the STEP 2 screen appears, accept all defaults. On this screen, if we had more
species, we could group them into groups that we hypothesize would have similar
detectabilities (based on size of duck, for example).

Click on the STEP 2 button to continue.

Clcik on the STEP 3 (select best model) button.

You will be presented with a list of models

that SURVIV has run for you (pre-
selected). Each has its associated AIC
score.

Take a moment to record the model results on the Lab Report.

Click on STEP 4 (compute estimates of N).

Record your results on the Lab Report, and complete the Lab Report.

END
 Independent Double Observer Survey
NRES 896 Abundance Estimation
LAB REPORT

Name: ___________________________

1. Model selection. Complete the following table:

Model N DF AIC

2. Describe the best model–what kind of detectability does it include?

3. Record the results of your analysis below:

Species P(detect) N-hat SE (N) 95% CI

4. Did your analysis find significantly more of one species?

5. In the simulation that created the data set, the true number of ducks in all wetlands
was: mallards 522, bluewing teal: 454. Are your estimates significantly different than
the “true” numbers?