The distribution and abundance of mosquito larvae in a freshwater marsh were determined during a low water period in the late summer. Culex tarsalis larval abundance was significantly associated with the percent cover by Typha spp. root masses and Typha spp. stem density in 1-m2 quadrants. Larval mosquito abundance was not significantly related to bulrush (Scirpus californicus) stem density, po...

An implicit assumption of standard line transect methodology is that detection probabilities depend solely on the perpendicular distance of detected objects to the transect line. Heterogeneity in detection probabilities is commonly minimized using stratification, but this may be precluded by small sample sizes. We develop a general methodology which allows the effects of multiple covariates to ...

Interest in surveys for monitoring plant abundance is increasing, due in part to the need to quantify the rate of loss of biodiversity. Line transect sampling offers an efficient way to monitor many species. However, the method does not work well in some circumstances, for example on small survey plots, when the plant species has a strongly aggregated distribution, or when plants that are on th...

Zigzag survey lines are frequently used in shipboard and aerial line transect surveys of animal populations. Analysis proceeds assuming that coverage probability through the survey region is uniform. We show that the two types of zigzag design that are in wide use do not generally have this property, and explore the degree of bias in abundance estimates that can be anticipated. We construct a z...

Cutting straight line transects through dense forest is time consuming and expensive when large areas need to be surveyed for rare or highly clustered species. We argue that existing paths or game trails may be suitable as transects for line transect sampling even though they will not, in general, run straight. Formulas and software currently used to estimate local density using perpendicular d...

In visual line transecting, whales are observed when surfacing to breath. Surfacings are short. Point process models for surfacing times are combined with a model for the hazard probability of initial sighting to obtain a likelihood for the observed encounters. Point processes are also useful for describing the clustering of encounters along the track line due to spatial clustering of whales.

hyrcanian forests in northern slope of alborz support high bird richness and abundance same as central of europe. in this study, efficiency of different methods including fixed-width transect, variable-width transect, fixed-radius point count and variable circular plot samplings were compared in order to present the most reliable methods for surveying and monitoring of diurnal forest birds in f...

This article develops methods for fitting spatial models to line transect data. These allow animal density to be related to topographical, environmental, habitat, and other spatial variables, helping wildlife managers to identify the factors that affect abundance. They also enable estimation of abundance for any subarea of interest within the surveyed region, and potentially yield estimates of ...