Using Distance for Orangutan Nest Survey

[Carter]

Hello, I am attempting to use Distance software to determine the population density of orangutans in a forest in Borneo. I walked a total of 25 kilometers over 14 transects, with 11 of the transects being 2 kilometers in length and 3 of the transects being 1 kilometer in length. A total of 24 orangutan nests were found. The area of forest surveyed is 40 square kilometers. I was wondering how I would use Distance software to estimate the population density of orangutans in this forest. Thank you very much for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Carter 

[Eric Rexstad]

Carter

Welcome to the list.

You will enter study area size, transects and associated detections into Distance--examples of line transect project organisation can be found in the Sample Projects folder after installation of Distance; e.g. "Line Transect Example.dst".  Analysis of those data will provide an estimate of nest density.  To convert from nest density to orangutan density, you will need to provide estimates of nest production rate and nest decay rate (along with measures of precision of both) are added to the Distance project with what are called multipliers.

When you create a new Distance project, the software will ask whether you wish to provide multipliers and you will be presented with this screen that I have partially completed indicating this is an indirect survey of nests--whereby the software creates four new fields in the global layer of the project for you to provide production rates and disappearance times and measures of precision

I hope this helps you.

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Eric Rexstad
Research Unit for Wildlife Population Assessment
Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling
University of St. Andrews
St. Andrews Scotland KY16 9LZ
+44 (0)1334 461833
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