Methods for shorebird surveys in the Arctic
This article is part of a larger document. View the larger document here.Abstract
A substantial effort is being made to develop a longterm monitoring program for shorebirds in North American (Brown et al. 2000, Donaldson et al. 2001, Bart et al. this volume). The current program, PRISM (Program for Regional and International Shorebird Monitoring), has four segments: arctic and boreal breeding surveys, temperate breeding surveys, temperate non-breeding surveys, and neotropical surveys. The arctic breeding surveys are intended to provide estimates of population size for each of the species and subspecies breeding in the arctic, to improve our understanding of distribution and abundance of breeding shorebirds, and to provide baseline data for future surveys that will be used to estimate trends in population size. More information about PRISM and how the arctic surveys will help accomplish the PRISM goals may be found in Bart et al. (this volume). This report describes the approach being used to survey shorebirds in the arctic. The arctic surveys use double sampling to estimate numbers present on a sample of plots and habitat-based regression models to extrapolate from the plots to large study areas. The methods were developed during 1994- 1997. Operational work was carried out during 1998- 2001 and is continuing.