Accuracy and precision of skink counts from artificial retreats

New Zealand Journal of Ecology

Volumn 35, Issue 3, 2011, Pages

  Lettink, Marieke ^a   O'Donnell, Colin F J ^b   Hoare, Joanne M ^b  

^a Fauna Finders   (New Zealand)

^b DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

Capture mark recapture; Index; Monitoring; Oligosoma polychroma; Pitfall trapping

Indexed keywords

ACCURACY ASSESSMENT; BIOMONITORING; ESTIMATION METHOD; HABITAT CONSERVATION; HABITAT TYPE; INDEX METHOD; LINEARITY; MARK-RECAPTURE METHOD; PITFALL TRAP; POPULATION SIZE; REPTILE; SPATIOTEMPORAL ANALYSIS; WILD POPULATION;

EGLINTON VALLEY; NEW ZEALAND; SOUTH ISLAND; SOUTHLAND;

OLIGOSOMA; SCINCIDAE; SPHENOMORPHUS;

EID: 79959458139     PISSN: 01106465     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. Akaike H 1974. A new look at the statistical model identification. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control AU-19: 716-722.
2. Bailey LL, Simons TR, Pollock KH 2004a. Comparing population size estimators for plethodontid salamanders. Journal of Herpetology 38: 370-380.
3. Bailey LL, Simons TR, Pollock KH 2004b. Estimating detection probability parameters for plethodon salamanders using the robust capture-recapture design. Journal of Wildlife Management 68: 1-13.
4. Barwick RE 1959. The life history of the common New Zealand skink Leiolopisma zelandica (Gray, 1843). Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand 86: 331-380.
5. Borchers DL, Buckland ST, Zucchini W 2002. Estimating animal abundance. London, Springer. 332 p.
6. Burnham KP, Anderson DR 2002. Model selection and multi-model inference: a practical information-theoretic approach. 2nd edn. New York, Springer. 488 p.
7. Conn PB, Arthur AD, Bailey LL, Singleton GR 2006. Estimating the abundance of mouse populations of known size: promises and pitfalls of new methods. Ecological Applications 16: 829-837.
8. Cooch E, White G 2010. Program MARK: a gentle introduction. 9th edn. http://www.phidot.org/software/mark/docs/book/ [first accessed 12 Sept 2006].
9. Crawley MJ 2005. Statistics: an introduction using R. Chichester, Wiley. 331 p.
10. Dilks P, Willans M, Pryde M, Fraser I 2003. Large scale stoat control to protect mohua (Mohoua ochrocephala) and kaka (Nestor meridionalis) in the Eglinton Valley,
11. Fiordland, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 27: 1-9.
12. Dodd CK Jr, Dorazio RM 2004. Using counts to simultaneously estimate abundance and detection probabilities in a salamander community. Herpetologica 60: 468-478.
13. Efford M 2004. Density estimation in live-trapping studies. Oikos 106: 598-610.
14. Efford MG, Dawson DK, Robbins CS 2004. DENSITY: software for analysing capture-recapture data from passive detector arrays. Animal Biodiversity and Conservation 27.1: 217-228.
15. Francke JVA 2005. Ecological implications of habitat fragmentation and restoration for the gecko Hoplodactylus maculatus. Unpublished MSc thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
16. Freeman AB 1997. Comparative ecology of two Oligosoma skinks in coastal Canterbury: a contrast with Central Otago. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 21: 153-160.
17. Gill BJ, Whitaker T 1996. New Zealand frogs & reptiles. Auckland, David Bateman. 112 p.
18. Hare KM, Cree A 2005. Natural history of Hoplodactylus stephensi (Reptilia: Gekkonidae) on Stephens Island, Cook Strait, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 29: 137-142.
19. Henke SE 1998. The effect of multiple search items and item abundance on the efficiency of human searchers. Journal of Herpetology 32: 112-115.
20. Heyer WR, Donnelly MA, McDiarmid RW, Hayek LC, Foster MS eds 1994. Measuring and monitoring biological diversity - standard methods for amphibians. Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution Press. 364 p.
21. Hitchmough RA, Hoare JM, Jamieson H, Newman D, Tocher MD, Anderson PJ, Lettink M, Whitaker AH 2010. Conservation status of New Zealand reptiles, 2009. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 37: 203-224.
22. Hoare JM, Adams LK, Bull LS, Towns DR 2007. Attempting to manage complex predator-prey interactions fails to avert imminent extinction of a threatened New Zealand skink population. Journal of Wildlife Management 71: 1576-1584.
23. Hoare JM, O'Donnell CFJ, Westbrooke I, Hodapp D, Lettink M 2009. Optimising the sampling of skinks using artificial retreats based on weather conditions and time of day. Applied Herpetology 6: 379-390.
24. Huggins RM 1989. On the statistical analysis of capture experiments. Biometrika 76: 133-140.
25. Huggins RM 1991. Some practical aspects of a conditional likelihood approach to capture experiments. Biometrics 47: 725-732.
26. Hurvich CM, Tsai C-L 1989. Regression and time series model selection in small samples. Biometrika 76: 297-307.
27. Hyde EJ, Simons TR 2001. Sampling plethodontid salamanders: sources of variability. Journal of Wildlife Management 65: 624-632.
28. Jewell T 2008. A photographic guide to reptiles & amphibians of New Zealand. Auckland, New Holland. 143 p.
29. Johnson PN 1982. Naturalised plants in south-west South Island, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 20: 131-142.
30. King CM 1983. The relationships between beech (Nothofagus sp.) seedfall and populations of mice (Mus musculus), and the demographic and dietary responses of stoats (Mustela erminea), in three New Zealand forests. Journal of Animal Ecology 52: 141-166.
31. Langkilde T, Shine R 2004. Competing for crevices: interspecific conflict influences retreat-site selection in montane lizards. Oecologia 140: 684-691.
32. Lee S-M, Chao A 1994. Estimating population size via sample coverage for closed capture-recapture models. Biometrics 50: 88-97.
33. Lettink M, Cree A 2006. Predation, by the feral house mouse (Mus musculus), of McCann's skinks (Oligosoma maccanni) constrained in pitfall traps. Herpetofauna 36: 61-62.
34. Lettink M, Cree A 2007. Relative use of three types of artificial retreats by terrestrial lizards in grazed coastal shrubland, New Zealand. Applied Herpetology 4: 227-243.
35. Lettink M, Norbury G, Cree A, Seddon PJ, Duncan RP, Schwarz CJ 2010. Removal of introduced predators, but not artificial refuge supplementation, increases skink survival in coastal duneland. Biological Conservation 143: 72-77.
36. Marsh DM, Goicochea MA 2003. Monitoring terrestrial salamanders: biases caused by intense sampling and choice of cover objects. Journal of Herpetology 37: 460-466.
37. Mazerolle MJ, Bailey LL, Kendall WL, Royle JA, Converse SJ, Nichols JD 2007. Making great leaps forward: accounting for detectability in herpetological field studies. Journal of Herpetology 41: 672-689.
38. Michael DR, Lunt ID, Robinson WA 2004. Enhancing fauna habitat in grazed native grasslands and woodlands: use of artificially placed log refuges by fauna. Wildlife Research 31: 65-71.
39. Monti L, Hunter M Jr, Witham J 2000. An evaluation of the artificial cover object (ACO) method for monitoring populations of the redback salamander Plethodon cinereus. Journal of Herpetology 34: 624-629.
40. Newman DG 1994. Effects of a mouse, Mus musculus, eradication programme and habitat change on lizard populations of Mana Island, New Zealand, with special reference to McGregor's skink, Cyclodina macgregori. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 21: 443-456.
41. Norbury G 2001. Conserving dryland lizards by reducing predator-mediated apparent competition and direct competition with introduced rabbits. Journal of Applied Ecology 38: 1350-1361.
42. O'Donnell CFJ 2002. Timing of breeding, productivity and survival of long-tailed bats Chalinolobus tuberculatus (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in cold-temperate rainforest in New Zealand. Journal of Zoology (London) 257: 311-323.
43. O'Donnell CFJ, Phillipson SM 1996. Predicting the incidence of mohua predation from the seedfall, mouse, and predator fluctuations in beech forests. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 23: 287-293.
44. O'Donnell CFJ, Dilks PJ, Elliott GP 1996. Control of a stoat (Mustela erminae) population irruption to enhance mohua (yellowhead) (Mohoua ochrocephala) breeding success in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 23: 279-286.
45. Otis DL, Burnham KP, White GC, Anderson DR 1978. Statistical inference from capture data on closed populations. Wildlife Monographs 62: 3-135.
46. Patterson GB 1985. The ecology and taxonomy of the common skink, Leiolopisma nigriplantare maccanni, in tussock grasslands in Otago. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. 217 p.
47. Patterson GB 1992. The ecology of a New Zealand grassland lizard guild. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 22: 91-106.
48. Pech RP, Sinclair ARE, Newsome AE 1995. Predation models for primary and secondary prey species. Wildlife Research 22: 55-64.
49. Pollock KH, Nichols JD, Simons TR, Farnsworth GL, Bailey LL, Sauer JR 2002. Large scale wildlife monitoring studies: statistical methods for design and analysis. Environmetrics 13: 105-119.
50. Pryde MA, O'Donnell CFJ, Barker RJ 2005. Factors influencing survival and long-term population viability of New Zealand long-tailed bats (Chalinolobus tuberculatus): implications for conservation. Biological Conservation 126: 175-185.
51. R Development Core Team 2010. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria, R Foundation for Statistical Computing. ISBN 3-900051- 003, URL http://www.R-project.org.
52. Reading CJ 1997. A proposed standard method for surveying reptiles on dry lowland heath. Journal of Applied Ecology 34: 1057-1069.
53. Reardon JT, Tocher MD 2003. Diagnostic morphometrics of the skink species, Oligosoma maccanni and O. nigriplantare polychroma, from South Island, New Zealand. DOC Science Internal Series 105. Wellington, Department of Conservation. 21 p.
54. Rodda GH, Campbell EW 2002. Distance sampling of forest snakes and lizards. Herpetological Review 33: 271-274.
55. Schwarz CJ, Seber GAF 1999. Estimating animal abundance: review III. Statistical Science 14: 427-456.
56. Sinclair ARE, Pech RP, Dickman CR, Hik D, Mahon P, Newsome AE 1998. Predicting effects of predation on conservation of endangered prey. Conservation Biology 12: 564-575.
57. Smith CK, Petranka JW 2000. Monitoring terrestrial salamanders: repeatability and validity of area-constrained cover object searches. Journal of Herpetology 34: 547-557.
58. Spencer NJ, Grimmond NM 1994. Influence of elevation on the thermoregulation of two sympatric lizards. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 21: 379-385.
59. Spencer NJ, Thomas BW, Mason RF, Dugdale JS 1998. Diet and life history variation in the sympatric lizards Oligosoma nigriplantare polychroma and Oligosoma lineoocellatum. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 25: 457-463.
60. Thompson WL, White GC, Gowan C 1998. Monitoring vertebrate populations. San Diego, CA, Academic Press. 365 p.
61. Towns DR 1991. Response of lizard assemblages in the Mercury Islands, New Zealand, to removal of an introduced rodent: the kiore (Rattus exulans). Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 21: 119-136.
62. Towns DR, Elliott GP 1996. Effects of habitat structure on distribution and abundance of lizards at Pukerua Bay, Wellington, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 20: 191-206.
63. Yoccoz NG, Nichols JD, Boulinier T 2001. Monitoring of biological diversity in space and time. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 16: 446-453.
64. Wakelin M, Smuts-Kennedy C, Thurley T, Webster N 2003. Artificial cover objects for leiopelmatid frogs. DOC Science Internal Series 120. Wellington, Department of Conservation. 17 p.
65. Webb JK, Shine R 2000. Paving the way for habitat restoration: can artificial rocks restore degraded habitats of endangered reptiles? Biological Conservation 92: 93-99.
66. Whitaker AH 1967. Locating nocturnal geckos by spotlight. Herpetologica 23: 310-311.
67. Whitaker AH 1982. Interim results from a study of Hoplodactylus maculatus (Boulenger) at Turakirae Head, Wellington. In: Newman DG ed. New Zealand herpetology: proceedings of a symposium held at Victoria University of Wellington 29-31 January 1980. New Zealand Wildlife Service Occasional Publication 2: 363-374.
68. White GC, Burnham KP 1999. Program MARK: survival estimation from populations of marked animals. Bird Study 46 (suppl. 1): S120-S138.
69. White PCL, King CM 2006. Predation on native birds in New Zealand beech forests: the role of functional relationships between Stoats Mustela erminea and rodents. Ibis 148: 765-771.
70. Wilson DJ, Mulvey RL, Clark RD 2007. Sampling skinks and geckos in artificial cover objects in a dry mixed grassland-shrubland with mammalian predator control. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 31: 169-185.