Shorebird Monitoring Using Spatially Explicit Occupancy and Abundance

Eve Bohnett (), Jessica Schulz, Robert Dobbs, Thomas Hoctor, Dave Hulse, Bilal Ahmad, Wajid Rashid and Hardin Waddle
Additional contact information
Eve Bohnett: U.S. Geological Survey, Gainesville, FL 32601, USA
Jessica Schulz: New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, Concord, NH 03301, USA
Robert Dobbs: Wildlife Diversity Program, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Lafayette, CA 70506, USA
Thomas Hoctor: Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32601, USA
Dave Hulse: Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32601, USA
Bilal Ahmad: Institute of Agriculture Sciences and Forestry, University of Swat, Mingora 19130, Pakistan
Wajid Rashid: Department of Environmental and Conservation Sciences, University of Swat, Mingora 19130, Pakistan
Hardin Waddle: U.S. Geological Survey, Gainesville, FL 32601, USA

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: Loss of habitat and human disturbance are major factors in the worldwide decline of shorebird populations, including that of the threatened migratory piping plover ( Charadrius melodus ). From 2013 to 2018, we conducted land-based surveys of the shorebird community every other week during the peak piping plover season (September to March). We assessed the ability of a thin plate spline occupancy model to identify hotspot locations on Whiskey Island, Louisiana, for the piping plover and four additional shorebird species (Wilson’s plover ( Charadrius wilsonia ), snowy plover ( Charadrius nivosus ), American oystercatcher ( Haematopus palliatus ), and red knot ( Calidris canutus )). By fitting single-species occupancy models with geographic thin plate spline parameters, hotspot priority regions for conserving piping plovers and the multispecies shorebird assemblage were identified on the island. The occupancy environmental covariate, distance to the coastline, was weakly fitting, where the spatially explicit models were heavily dependent on the spatial spline parameter for distribution estimation. Additionally, the detectability parameters for Julian date and tide stage affected model estimations, resulting in seemingly inflated estimates compared to assuming perfect detection. The models predicted species distributions, biodiversity, high-use habitats for conservation, and multispecies conservation areas using a thin-plate spline for spatially explicit estimation without significant landscape variables, demonstrating the applicability of this modeling approach for defining areas on a landscape that are more heavily used by a species or multiple species.

Keywords: piping plover; thin plate spline; occupancy model; migratory shorebirds; multispecies occupancy; N -mixture models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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