Occupancy Modeling: Using Detection Rates to Improve Wildlife Surveys

Draft Schedule

Arrive evening of Weds, 12 Sept 2007. Welcome reception (light meal) at CRC from 6:00-7:30 pm. Registration and check-in for housing available.  If you have not yet loaded software on your laptop, that can be done this evening.

Day 1 (Thursday, 13 Sept 2007)

7:00am Breakfast and registration

8:00am Background: inferences about animal populations

– why estimate stuff (science, conservation/management)

o science

§ role of estimation in conduct of science

§ generation of system dynamics

§ inference from pattern vs. process

o conservation/management

§ roles of estimation in conduct of conservation/,management

– what to estimate

o dictated by answer(s) to “why?” question

o possible state variables (abundance, occupancy, species richness) and associated vital rates

– how to estimate: basic principles

o geographic variation

o detectability

8:30am Occupancy: relevance to ecology and conservation

Classes of ecological questions

o geographic range

o habitat relationships and resource selection

o metapopulation dynamics

o large-scale monitoring

o multispecies inferences

– Conservation/management

o Status assessment for listing decisions

o Disease modeling

9:00am Statistical background

– concepts and notations

– covariate modelling and odds ratios

– hypothesis testing

– model selection and multimodel inference

10:00am BREAK

10:15am Single-season models

– basic sampling situation (data type)

– model history and development

– missing observations

– covariates

– model assumptions

– dealing with heterogeneity

– small sample/finite population inference

11:30pm LUNCH

12:45pm Introduction to PRESENCE, worked single-season examples and computer exercises

1:45pm Single-season study design

      --    site selection

– allocation of effort

– design comparisons

– survey timing

– miscellaneous issues

– covariates

– GENPRES

2:45pm BREAK

3:15pm Multi-season models

– basic sampling situation

– model history and development

– alternative parameterizations

– characterizing occupancy dynamics

– modelling spatial correlations in occupancy dynamics

4:15pm Multi-season models in PRESENCE Part I 

4:45pm BREAK

5:30pm SUPPER

7:00pm Multi-season models in PRESENCE Part II 

– design matrices

– examples

Day 2 (Friday, 14 Sept 2007)

7:00am Breakfast

8:00am Multi-season models – ecological example

– Amazon birds in fragments

8:45 Multiple-season study design

– relationship with single-season designs

– long-term design

– adding sites over time

– GENPRES

10:15 am BREAK

10:30 Study design examples and computer exercises

11:00 Advanced ideas and applications I

– Multi-species occupancy

o species co-occurrence (2 species) – single season

o species co-occurrence (2 species) – dynamics

o species richness or biodiversity

12:00pm LUNCH

1:00pm Advanced ideas and applications  II

     --     Multistate occupancy

o 3-state occupancy – single season

o 3-state occupancy – dynamics

– Other extensions

o Joint habitat-occupancy dynamics

o Incorporation of count data

o Marked animals

o

2:00pm Consulting session– analyze own data

– ask specific questions of the instructors

3:00pm BREAK

3:15pm Consulting session– analyze own data

– ask specific questions of the instructors

4:15 FINISH