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At least 487 records · Page 27Linked to original sources
USGS2021

Ecological correlates of fecal corticosterone metabolites in female Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrococercus urophasianus)

Measurement of physiological responses can reveal effects of ecological conditions on an animal and correlate with demographic parameters. Ecological conditions for many animal species have deteriorated as a function of invasive plants and habitat fragmentation. Expansion of juniper (Juniperus spp.) trees and invasion of annual grasses into sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems have contributed to habitat degradation for Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrococercus urophasianus (Bonaparte, 1827); hereafter, “Sage-Grouse”), a species of conservation concern throughout its range. We evaluated relationships between habitat use in a landscape modified by juniper expansion and annual grasses and corticosterone metabolite levels (stress responses) in feces (FCORTm) of female Sage-Grouse. We used remotely sensed data to estimate vegetation cover within hens’ home ranges and accounted for factors that influence FCORTm in other vertebrates, such as age and weather. We collected 36 fecal samples from 22 radio-collared hens during the brood-rearing season (24 May–26 July) in southwestern Idaho 2017–18. Concentrations of corticosterone increased with home range size but decreased with reproductive effort and temperature. The importance of home range size suggests that maintaining or improving habitats that promote smaller home ranges would likely facilitate a lower stress response by hens, which should benefit Sage-Grouse survival and reproduction.

Idaho↗
USGS2019

Responses of Native American cultural heritage to changes in environmental setting

Cultural expressions of American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) reflect the relationship between AIAN and the plant and animal species present in an area. Different forces that modify that relationship and influence those expressions can potentially shape AIAN cultural heritage and even compromise their cultural identity. Herein, we propose seven modalities to illustrate how AIAN cultural expressions may respond to changes in environmental settings that alter the relationship between plant and animal assemblages, and Native peoples. Each modality provides insight into the vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity of AIAN cultural expressions to changes in environmental settings. Future research may delve deeper into these modalities and help identify appropriate methods for managing culturally important resources. More culturally sensitive management approaches may strengthen conservation practices and safeguard the cultural legacy of indigenous groups.

AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenou↗
USGS2005

Biology and invasive species in the western U.S

The diversity of environments that characterizes the West is responsible for the region's rich biological heritage. This ecological diversity also means that opportunities for invasive species are many, varied, and complex. Island ecosystems are notoriously vulnerable to invaders as demonstrated in Hawaii and West Coast offshore islands. Aquatic invaders impose high economic and environmental costs in systems as varied as San Francisco Bay and desert springs in the Great Basin. Although the West's arid and montane ecosystems may seem resistant to plant and animal invaders, we now know that ex-otic species have altered physical processes related to fire and hydrology in a manner favoring further expansion and persis-tence of invaders. Natural resource managers value analytical, mapping, and genetics tools developed by USGS scientists to monitor invasive species and help conserve biological systems. USGS biologists conduct research to assist land and water managers' efforts to control invasive species and restore natural systems. Throughout the West, the USGS carries out studies for early detection and rapid assessment of invaders. The following are some examples of how the USGS is making a difference in the western United States.

Fact Sheet↗
USGS2012

A framework for understanding semi-permeable barrier effects on migratory ungulates

1. Impermeable barriers to migration can greatly constrain the set of possible routes and ranges used by migrating animals. For ungulates, however, many forms of development are semi-permeable, and making informed management decisions about their potential impacts to the persistence of migration routes is difficult because our knowledge of how semi-permeable barriers affect migratory behaviour and function is limited. 2. Here, we propose a general framework to advance the understanding of barrier effects on ungulate migration by emphasizing the need to (i) quantify potential barriers in terms that allow behavioural thresholds to be considered, (ii) identify and measure behavioural responses to semi-permeable barriers and (iii) consider the functional attributes of the migratory landscape (e.g. stopovers) and how the benefits of migration might be reduced by behavioural changes. 3. We used global position system (GPS) data collected from two subpopulations of mule deer Odocoileus hemionus to evaluate how different levels of gas development influenced migratory behaviour, including movement rates and stopover use at the individual level, and intensity of use and width of migration route at the population level. We then characterized the functional landscape of migration routes as either stopover habitat or movement corridors and examined how the observed behavioural changes affected the functionality of the migration route in terms of stopover use. 4. We found migratory behaviour to vary with development intensity. Our results suggest that mule deer can migrate through moderate levels of development without any noticeable effects on migratory behaviour. However, in areas with more intensive development, animals often detoured from established routes, increased their rate of movement and reduced stopover use, while the overall use and width of migration routes decreased. 5. Synthesis and applications . In contrast to impermeable barriers that impede animal movement, semi-permeable barriers allow animals to maintain connectivity between their seasonal ranges. Our results identify the mechanisms (e.g. detouring, increased movement rates, reduced stopover use) by which semi-permeable barriers affect the functionality of ungulate migration routes and emphasize that the management of semi-permeable barriers may play a key role in the conservation of migratory ungulate populations.

Journal of Applied Ecology↗
USGS1998

Influence of habitat on behavior of Towndsend's ground squirrels (Spermophilus townsendii)

Trade-offs between foraging and predator avoidance may affect an animal's survival and reproduction. These trade-offs may be influenced by differences in vegetative cover, especially if foraging profitability and predation risk differ among habitats. We examined above-ground activity of Townsend's ground squirrels ( Spermophilus townsendii ) in four habitats in the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area in southwestern Idaho to determine if behavior of ground squirrels varied among habitats, and we assessed factors that might affect perceived predation risk (i.e. predator detectability, predation pressure, population density). The proportion of time spent in vigilance by ground squirrels in winterfat ( Krascheninnikovia lanata ) and mosaic habitats of winterfat-sagebrush ( Artemisia tridentata ) was more than twice that of ground squirrels in burned and unburned sagebrush habitats. We found no evidence for the “many-eyes” hypothesis as an explanation for differences in vigilance among habitats. Instead, environmental heterogeneity, especially vegetation structure, likely influenced activity budgets of ground squirrels. Differences in vigilance may have been caused by differences in predator detectability and refuge availability, because ground squirrels in the winterfat and mosaic habitats also spent more time in upright vigilant postures than ground squirrels in burned-sagebrush or sagebrush habitats. Such postures may enhance predator detection in low-growing winterfat.

Journal of Mammalogy↗
USGS2012

Estimating abundance of mountain lions from unstructured spatial sampling

Mountain lions (Puma concolor) are often difficult to monitor because of their low capture probabilities, extensive movements, and large territories. Methods for estimating the abundance of this species are needed to assess population status, determine harvest levels, evaluate the impacts of management actions on populations, and derive conservation and management strategies. Traditional mark–recapture methods do not explicitly account for differences in individual capture probabilities due to the spatial distribution of individuals in relation to survey effort (or trap locations). However, recent advances in the analysis of capture–recapture data have produced methods estimating abundance and density of animals from spatially explicit capture–recapture data that account for heterogeneity in capture probabilities due to the spatial organization of individuals and traps. We adapt recently developed spatial capture–recapture models to estimate density and abundance of mountain lions in western Montana. Volunteers and state agency personnel collected mountain lion DNA samples in portions of the Blackfoot drainage (7,908 km 2 ) in west-central Montana using 2 methods: snow back-tracking mountain lion tracks to collect hair samples and biopsy darting treed mountain lions to obtain tissue samples. Overall, we recorded 72 individual capture events, including captures both with and without tissue sample collection and hair samples resulting in the identification of 50 individual mountain lions (30 females, 19 males, and 1 unknown sex individual). We estimated lion densities from 8 models containing effects of distance, sex, and survey effort on detection probability. Our population density estimates ranged from a minimum of 3.7 mountain lions/100 km 2 (95% Cl 2.3–5.7) under the distance only model (including only an effect of distance on detection probability) to 6.7 (95% Cl 3.1–11.0) under the full model (including effects of distance, sex, survey effort, and distance x sex on detection probability). These numbers translate to a total estimate of 293 mountain lions (95% Cl 182–451) to 529 (95% Cl 245–870) within the Blackfoot drainage. Results from the distance model are similar to previous estimates of 3.6 mountain lions/100 km 2 for the study area; however, results from all other models indicated greater numbers of mountain lions. Our results indicate that unstructured spatial sampling combined with spatial capture–recapture analysis can be an effective method for estimating large carnivore densities.

Journal of Wildlife Management↗
USGS2012

Nature's Notebook 2011: Data & participant summary

Introduction The USA National Phenology Network The USA National Phenology Network (USA‐NPN; www.usanpn.org) seeks to engage a diverse range of citizen scientist volunteers, federal, state, and non‐governmental organizations, educators and professional research scientists to collect phenological observations of plants and animals using consistent standards and to contribute their observations to a national data repository. To guide this effort, the USA‐NPN National Coordinating Office (NCO), based in Tucson, Arizona, implemented an online monitoring program for plants and animals, Nature's Notebook , and has developed phenology monitoring protocols and an information management system, which includes the National Phenology Database (NPDb). We are developing a diversity of materials, tools, techniques, and protocols to assist decision making and education related to ecology, wildlife, human health, ecosystem services, natural resource management, biological conservation, and climate change adaptation.

USA-NPN Technical Series↗
USGS2008

Molecular and morphological analysis of the critically endangered Fijian iguanas reveals cryptic diversity and a complex biogeographic history

The Pacific iguanas of the Fijian and Tongan archipelagos are a biogeographic enigma in that their closest relatives are found only in the New World. They currently comprise two genera and four species of extinct and extant taxa. The two extant species, Brachylophus fasciatus from Fiji, Tonga, and Vanuatu and Brachylophus vitiensis from western Fiji, are of considerable conservation concern with B. vitiensis listed as critically endangered. A recent molecular study has shown that Brachylophus comprised three evolutionarily significant units. To test these conclusions and to reevaluate the phylogenetic and biogeographic relationships within Brachylophus, we generated an mtDNA dataset consisting of 1462 base pairs for 61 individuals from 13 islands, representing both Brachylophus species. Unweighted parsimony analyses and Bayesian analyses produced a well-resolved phylogenetic hypothesis supported by high bootstrap values and posterior probabilities within Brachylophus. Our data reject the monophyly of specimens previously believed to comprise B. fasciatus. Instead, our data demonstrate that living Brachylophus comprise three robust and well-supported clades that do not correspond to current taxonomy. One of these clades comprises B. fasciatus from the Lau group of Fiji and Tonga (type locality for B. fasciatus), while a second comprises putative B. fasciatus from the central regions of Fiji, which we refer to here as B. n. sp. Animals in this clade form the sister group to B. vitiensis rather than other B. fasciatus. We herein describe this clade as a new species of Brachylophus based on molecular and morphological data. With only one exception, every island is home to one or more unique haplotypes. We discuss alternative biogeographic hypotheses to explain their distribution in the Pacific and the difficulties of distinguishing these. Together, our molecular and taxonomic results have important implications for future conservation initiatives for the Pacific iguanas. ?? 2008 The Royal Society.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B:↗
USGS2023

Seventy questions of importance to the conservation of the North Central grasslands of the United States in a changing climate

Successful conservation of ecosystems in a changing climate requires actionable research that directly supports the rethinking and revising of management approaches to address changing risks and opportunities. As an important first step toward actionable research, we reviewed and synthesized grassland management-related documents to identify broadly shared questions that, if answered, would help to support collective conservation of the grasslands in the northern Great Plains of the United States in a changing climate. A Management Priorities Working Group reviewed 183 grassland-relevant management documents and identified 70 questions. Feedback was iteratively provided by a Climate and Ecology Working Group, an Advisory Committee, and representatives from grassland management agencies and organizations. The identified questions generally fall under 15 topics: land conversion; restoration; disturbance regimes; woody encroachment; herbaceous invasives; grazing; water quality, quantity, and availability; animal species; private land; public understanding; legal and policy changes; economic incentives; coordination across management entities; accessibility of science and tools; and novel ways of thinking. These questions can inform a research agenda for researchers looking to conduct actionable science in the Great Plains grassland ecosystems. Both the approach and the questions presented here can also be adapted and applied in other regions and ecosystems.

Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota,↗
USGS2002

A census of marine life: Unknowable or just unknown?

As an introduction to the entire volume, this article outlines the relationships among the five elements of the Census of Marine Life (CoML) that create new knowledge: (1) The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), a marine component of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, links marine databases around the world to provide an Internet accessible, dynamic interface for comparing species-level, geo-referenced biodiversity data in relation to ocean habitats. The entire CoML field project data will be managed in and accessible through OBIS. (2) The History of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP) is a unique new synthesis of historical and biological research that will document marine biodiversity, globally, up to 500 years ago, before significant human impact, and store it in formats compatible with modern data in OBIS. (3) The Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research Working Group 118 monitors and recommends advanced marine technologies, ready to be routinely used in CoML field projects. (4) CoML Initial Field Projects develop and calibrate these technologies in selected regions to facilitate and accelerate global biodiversity research. As calibrated technologies and protocols are adopted in many regions, qualitative and quantitative biodiversity discoveries accumulate. (5) The Future of Marine Animal Populations (FMAP) program will insure that the data in OBIS are suitable for modeling and predicting changes in global biodiversity in response to fishing, pollution, and climate change challenges. It will make datasets available for hindcasting and forecasting analyses linked to physical ocean observations and assist in documenting the impacts of conservation efforts on sustainability.

Oceanologica Acta↗
USGS1999

Genetic and morphometric assessment of an unusual tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) population in the Black Mountains of Arizona

Under recent regulatory designation of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) occurring east and south of the Colorado River constitute the Sonoran population, whereas those to the west and north form the Mojave population. These management units, distinguished by significant genetic, morphometric, and ecological differences, represent deep phylogenetic subdivisions within G. agassizii and are of high conservation value. We provide genetic and morphological profiles for an unusual tortoise population inhabiting the Black Mountains of Arizona, some 40 km east of the Colorado River. Both mitochondrial (mt) DNA and morphometric analyses revealed predominately Mojavean features: ten of eleven Black Mountain tortoises possessed Mojave mtDNA markers, and 24 of 37 animals exhibited Mojave morphometric phenotypes. Our results indicate west-to-east movement of tortoises across the Colorado River, though how or when a Mojave lineage became established in the Black Mountains is difficult to ascertain. Active dispersal, river meander, and human transport (early or modern peoples) serve as plausible explanations. Future management of the Black Mountain tortoises should emphasize the population's Mojavean affinities.

Journal of Herpetology↗
USGS2013

Evolutionary hotspots in the Mojave Desert

Genetic diversity within species provides the raw material for adaptation and evolution. Just as regions of high species diversity are conservation targets, identifying regions containing high genetic diversity and divergence within and among populations may be important to protect future evolutionary potential. When multiple co-distributed species show spatial overlap in high genetic diversity and divergence, these regions can be considered evolutionary hotspots. We mapped spatial population genetic structure for 17 animal species across the Mojave Desert, USA. We analyzed these in concurrence and located 10 regions of high genetic diversity, divergence or both among species. These were mainly concentrated along the western and southern boundaries where ecotones between mountain, grassland and desert habitat are prevalent, and along the Colorado River. We evaluated the extent to which these hotspots overlapped protected lands and utility-scale renewable energy development projects of the Bureau of Land Management. While 30–40% of the total hotspot area was categorized as protected, between 3–7% overlapped with proposed renewable energy project footprints, and up to 17% overlapped with project footprints combined with transmission corridors. Overlap of evolutionary hotspots with renewable energy development mainly occurred in 6 of the 10 identified hotspots. Resulting GIS-based maps can be incorporated into ongoing landscape planning efforts and highlight specific regions where further investigation of impacts to population persistence and genetic connectivity may be warranted.

Mojave Desert↗
USGS2020

Tidal wetland resilience to increased rates of sea level rise in the Chesapeake Bay: Introduction to the special feature

The papers in this Special Feature are the result of the first Marsh Resilience Summit in the Chesapeake Bay region, which occurred in February 2019. The Chesapeake Bay region has one of the highest rates of relative sea level rise in the U.S., jeopardizing over 1000 km 2 of tidal wetlands along with other coastal lands. The goal of the Summit and this collection of articles is to analyze tidal wetland response to accelerating sea level rise and the effect their response will have on adaptation planning for surrounding communities. Ten Summit presenters share their research in this Special Feature. In this Introduction, we summarize their findings on evaluating restoration potential at the site-specific level, measuring and projecting marsh migration and erosions rates, describing impacts of wetland migration on a marsh dependent animal, effects on human communities, and finally the roles of property owners and government on future tidal wetland extent. These contributions demonstrate that tidal marsh distribution is dynamic in response to sea level rise, and that social, legal, and policy tools can be used and further developed to enable opportunities for restoring or conserving wetlands when stakeholders are engaged effectively. The papers here and feedback from Summit participants illuminate diverse priorities, research unknowns, and next steps for land use planning toward resilience of the Chesapeake Bay region that also can inform global communities.

Maryland, Virgina↗
USGS2020

Waterfowl occurrence and residence time as indicators of H5 and H7 avian influenza in North American Poultry

Avian influenza (AI) affects wild aquatic birds and poses hazards to human health, food security, and wildlife conservation globally. Accordingly, there is a recognized need for new methods and tools to help quantify the dynamic interaction between wild bird hosts and commercial poultry. Using satellite-marked waterfowl, we applied Bayesian joint hierarchical modeling to concurrently model species distributions, residency times, migration timing, and disease occurrence probability under an integrated animal movement and disease distribution modeling framework. Our results indicate that migratory waterfowl are positively related to AI occurrence over North America such that as waterfowl occurrence probability or residence time increase at a given location, so too does the chance of a commercial poultry AI outbreak. Analyses also suggest that AI occurrence probability is greatest during our observed waterfowl northward migration, and less during the southward migration. Methodologically, we found that when modeling disparate facets of disease systems at the wildlife-agriculture interface, it is essential that multiscale spatial patterns be addressed to avoid mistakenly inferring a disease process or disease-environment relationship from a pattern evaluated at the improper spatial scale. The study offers important insights into migratory waterfowl ecology and AI disease dynamics that aid in better preparing for future outbreaks.

Scientific Reports↗
USGS2004

Tigers and their prey: Predicting carnivore densities from prey abundance

The goal of ecology is to understand interactions that determine the distribution and abundance of organisms. In principle, ecologists should be able to identify a small number of limiting resources for a species of interest, estimate densities of these resources at different locations across the landscape, and then use these estimates to predict the density of the focal species at these locations. In practice, however, development of functional relationships between abundances of species and their resources has proven extremely difficult, and examples of such predictive ability are very rare. Ecological studies of prey requirements of tigers Panthera tigris led us to develop a simple mechanistic model for predicting tiger density as a function of prey density. We tested our model using data from a landscape-scale long-term (1995-2003) field study that estimated tiger and prey densities in 11 ecologically diverse sites across India. We used field techniques and analytical methods that specifically addressed sampling and detectability, two issues that frequently present problems in macroecological studies of animal populations. Estimated densities of ungulate prey ranged between 5.3 and 63.8 animals per km 2 . Estimated tiger densities (3.2-16.8 tigers per 100 km 2 ) were reasonably consistent with model predictions. The results provide evidence of a functional relationship between abundances of large carnivores and their prey under a wide range of ecological conditions. In addition to generating important insights into carnivore ecology and conservation, the study provides a potentially useful model for the rigorous conduct of macroecological science.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences↗
USGS2005

Home range and survival of breeding painted buntings on Sapelo Island, Georgia

The southeastern United States population of the painted bunting ( Passerina ciris ) has decreased approximately 75% from 1966–1996 based on Breeding Bird Survey trends. Partners in Flight guidelines recommend painted bunting conservation as a high priority with a need for management by state and federal agencies. Basic information on home range and survival of breeding painted buntings will provide managers with required habitat types and estimates of land areas necessary to maintain minimum population sizes for this species. We radiotracked after-second-year male and after-hatching-year female buntings on Sapelo Island, Georgia, during the breeding seasons (late April-early August) of 1997 and 1998. We used the animal movement extension in ArcView to determine fixed-kernel home range in an unmanaged maritime shrub and managed 60–80-year-old pine ( Pinus spp.)-oak ( Quercus spp.) forest. Using the Kaplan-Meier method, we estimated an adult breeding season survival of 1.00 for males ( n = 36) and 0.94 (SE = 0.18) for females ( n = 27). Painted bunting home ranges were smaller in unmanaged maritime shrub (female: kernel = 3.5 ha [95% CI: 2.5-4.5]; male: kernel = 3.1 ha [95% CI: 2.3-3.9]) compared to those in managed pine-oak forests (female: kernel = 4.7 ha [95% CI: 2.8-6.6]; male: kernel = 7.0 ha [95% CI: 4.9-9.1]). Buntings nesting in the managed pine-oak forest flew long distances (≥300 m) to forage in salt marshes, freshwater wetlands, and moist forest clearings. In maritime shrub buntings occupied a compact area and rarely moved long distances. The painted bunting population of Sapelo Island requires conservation of maritime shrub as potential optimum nesting habitat and management of nesting habitat in open-canopy pine-oak sawtimber forests by periodic prescribed fire (every 4–6 years) and timber thinning within a landscape that contains salt marsh or freshwater wetland openings within 700 m of those forests.

Georgia↗
USGS2024

The potential for species distribution models to distinguish source populations from sinks

1. While species distribution models (SDM) are frequently used to predict species occurrences to help inform conservation management, there is limited evidence evaluating whether habitat suitability can reliably predict intrinsic growth rates or distinguish source from sink populations. Filling this knowledge gap is critical for conservation science, as applications of SDMs for management purposes ultimately depend on these typically unobserved population or metapopulation dynamics. 2. Using regression, we associate previously published population level estimates of intrinsic growth and abundance derived from a Bayesian analysis of mark-recapture data for 17 bird species found in the contiguous United States with SDM habitat suitability estimates fitted here to opportunistic data for these same species. We then use AUC to measure how well SDMs can distinguish populations categorized as sources and sinks, depending on their intrinsic growth rates estimated from the mark-recapture data. We built SDMs using two different approaches, boosted regression trees (BRT) and Generalized Linear Models (GLM), and compared their predictive performance. Each SDM was built with presence points obtained from eBird and 10 environmental variables previously selected to model intrinsic growth rates and abundance for these species. 3. We show that SDMs built with opportunistic data are poor predictors of species demography in general; both BRT and GLM explained very little spatial variation of intrinsic growth rate and population abundance (median R2 across 17 species was close to 0.1 for both SDM methods). SDMs do, however, estimate higher suitability for source populations as compared to sinks. Out of 13 species which had both source and sink populations, both BRT and GLM had AUC values greater than 0.7 for 7 species when discriminating between sources and sinks. 4. Habitat suitability have the potential to be a useful measure to indicate a population’s ability to sustain itself as a source population, however more research on a diverse set of taxa is essential to fully explore this potential. This interpretation of habitat suitability can be particularly useful for conservation practice, and identification of explicit cases of when and how SDMs fail to match population demography can be informative for advancing ecological theory.

Journal of Animal Ecology↗
USGS2016

A goodness-of-fit test for occupancy models with correlated within-season revisits

Occupancy modeling is important for exploring species distribution patterns and for conservation monitoring. Within this framework, explicit attention is given to species detection probabilities estimated from replicate surveys to sample units. A central assumption is that replicate surveys are independent Bernoulli trials, but this assumption becomes untenable when ecologists serially deploy remote cameras and acoustic recording devices over days and weeks to survey rare and elusive animals. Proposed solutions involve modifying the detection-level component of the model (e.g., first-order Markov covariate). Evaluating whether a model sufficiently accounts for correlation is imperative, but clear guidance for practitioners is lacking. Currently, an omnibus goodnessof- fit test using a chi-square discrepancy measure on unique detection histories is available for occupancy models (MacKenzie and Bailey, Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics, 9, 2004, 300; hereafter, MacKenzie– Bailey test). We propose a join count summary measure adapted from spatial statistics to directly assess correlation after fitting a model. We motivate our work with a dataset of multinight bat call recordings from a pilot study for the North American Bat Monitoring Program. We found in simulations that our join count test was more reliable than the MacKenzie–Bailey test for detecting inadequacy of a model that assumed independence, particularly when serial correlation was low to moderate. A model that included a Markov-structured detection-level covariate produced unbiased occupancy estimates except in the presence of strong serial correlation and a revisit design consisting only of temporal replicates. When applied to two common bat species, our approach illustrates that sophisticated models do not guarantee adequate fit to real data, underscoring the importance of model assessment. Our join count test provides a widely applicable goodness-of-fit test and specifically evaluates occupancy model lack of fit related to correlation among detections within a sample unit. Our diagnostic tool is available for practitioners that serially deploy survey equipment as a way to achieve cost savings.

Ecology and Evolution↗