Estimating uncertainty of North American landbird population sizes

An important metric for many aspects of species conservation planning and risk assessment is an estimate of total population size. For landbirds breeding in North America, Partners in Flight (PIF) generates global, continental, and regional population size estimates. These estimates are an important...

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Autores principales:	Jessica C. Stanton, Peter Blancher, Kenneth V. Rosenberg, Arvind O. Panjabi, Wayne E. Thogmartin
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Resilience Alliance 2019
Materias:	breeding bird survey partners in flight population size species conservation assessment uncertainty Plant culture SB1-1110 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Plant ecology QK900-989
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/0a76e199f44a4649b80b1c7b6e13f101
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:0a76e199f44a4649b80b1c7b6e13f1012021-12-02T11:25:41ZEstimating uncertainty of North American landbird population sizes1712-6568https://doaj.org/article/0a76e199f44a4649b80b1c7b6e13f1012019-06-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.ace-eco.org/vol14/iss1/art4/https://doaj.org/toc/1712-6568An important metric for many aspects of species conservation planning and risk assessment is an estimate of total population size. For landbirds breeding in North America, Partners in Flight (PIF) generates global, continental, and regional population size estimates. These estimates are an important component of the PIF species assessment process, but have also been used by others for a range of applications. The PIF population size estimates are primarily calculated using a formula designed to extrapolate bird counts recorded by the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) to regional population estimates. The extrapolation formula includes multiple assumptions and sources of uncertainty, but there were previously no attempts to quantify this uncertainty in the published population size estimates aside from a categorical data quality score. Using a Monte Carlo approach, we propagated the main sources of uncertainty arising from individual components of the model through to the final estimation of landbird population sizes. This approach results in distributions of population size estimates rather than point estimates. We found the width of uncertainty of population size estimates to be generally narrower than the order-of-magnitude distances between the population size score categories PIF uses in the species assessment process, suggesting confidence in the categorical ranking used by PIF. Our approach provides a means to identify species whose uncertainty bounds span more than one categorical rank, which was not previously possible with the data quality scores. Although there is still room for additional improvements to the estimation of avian population sizes and uncertainty, particularly with respect to replacing categorical model components with empirical estimates, our estimates of population size distributions have broader utility to a range of conservation planning and risk assessment activities relying on avian population size estimates.Jessica C. StantonPeter BlancherKenneth V. RosenbergArvind O. PanjabiWayne E. ThogmartinResilience Alliancearticlebreeding bird surveypartners in flightpopulation sizespecies conservation assessmentuncertaintyPlant cultureSB1-1110Environmental sciencesGE1-350Plant ecologyQK900-989ENAvian Conservation and Ecology, Vol 14, Iss 1, p 4 (2019)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	breeding bird survey partners in flight population size species conservation assessment uncertainty Plant culture SB1-1110 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Plant ecology QK900-989
spellingShingle	breeding bird survey partners in flight population size species conservation assessment uncertainty Plant culture SB1-1110 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Plant ecology QK900-989 Jessica C. Stanton Peter Blancher Kenneth V. Rosenberg Arvind O. Panjabi Wayne E. Thogmartin Estimating uncertainty of North American landbird population sizes
description	An important metric for many aspects of species conservation planning and risk assessment is an estimate of total population size. For landbirds breeding in North America, Partners in Flight (PIF) generates global, continental, and regional population size estimates. These estimates are an important component of the PIF species assessment process, but have also been used by others for a range of applications. The PIF population size estimates are primarily calculated using a formula designed to extrapolate bird counts recorded by the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) to regional population estimates. The extrapolation formula includes multiple assumptions and sources of uncertainty, but there were previously no attempts to quantify this uncertainty in the published population size estimates aside from a categorical data quality score. Using a Monte Carlo approach, we propagated the main sources of uncertainty arising from individual components of the model through to the final estimation of landbird population sizes. This approach results in distributions of population size estimates rather than point estimates. We found the width of uncertainty of population size estimates to be generally narrower than the order-of-magnitude distances between the population size score categories PIF uses in the species assessment process, suggesting confidence in the categorical ranking used by PIF. Our approach provides a means to identify species whose uncertainty bounds span more than one categorical rank, which was not previously possible with the data quality scores. Although there is still room for additional improvements to the estimation of avian population sizes and uncertainty, particularly with respect to replacing categorical model components with empirical estimates, our estimates of population size distributions have broader utility to a range of conservation planning and risk assessment activities relying on avian population size estimates.
format	article
author	Jessica C. Stanton Peter Blancher Kenneth V. Rosenberg Arvind O. Panjabi Wayne E. Thogmartin
author_facet	Jessica C. Stanton Peter Blancher Kenneth V. Rosenberg Arvind O. Panjabi Wayne E. Thogmartin
author_sort	Jessica C. Stanton
title	Estimating uncertainty of North American landbird population sizes
title_short	Estimating uncertainty of North American landbird population sizes
title_full	Estimating uncertainty of North American landbird population sizes
title_fullStr	Estimating uncertainty of North American landbird population sizes
title_full_unstemmed	Estimating uncertainty of North American landbird population sizes
title_sort	estimating uncertainty of north american landbird population sizes
publisher	Resilience Alliance
publishDate	2019
url	https://doaj.org/article/0a76e199f44a4649b80b1c7b6e13f101
work_keys_str_mv	AT jessicacstanton estimatinguncertaintyofnorthamericanlandbirdpopulationsizes AT peterblancher estimatinguncertaintyofnorthamericanlandbirdpopulationsizes AT kennethvrosenberg estimatinguncertaintyofnorthamericanlandbirdpopulationsizes AT arvindopanjabi estimatinguncertaintyofnorthamericanlandbirdpopulationsizes AT wayneethogmartin estimatinguncertaintyofnorthamericanlandbirdpopulationsizes
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Estimating uncertainty of North American landbird population sizes

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