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OPTIMIZING ALLOCATION OF MONITORING EFFORT UNDER ECONOMIC AND OBSERVATIONAL CONSTRAINTS

Abstract Efforts to design monitoring regimes capable of detecting population trends can be thwarted by observational and economic constraints inherent to most biological surveys. Ensuring that limited resources are allocated efficiently requires evaluation of statistical power for alternative survey designs. We simulated the process of data collection on a landscape, where we initiated declines over 3 sample periods in species of varying prevalence and detectability. Changing occupancy levels were estimated using a technique that accounted for effects of false-negative errors on survey data. Declines were identified within a frequentist statistical framework, but the significance level was set at an optimal level rather than adhering to an arbitrary conventional threshold. By varying the number of sites sampled and repeat visits made, we show how managers can design an optimal monitoring regime that maximizes statistical power within fixed budget constraints. Results show that 2 to 3 visits/site are generally sufficient unless occupancy is very high or detectability is low. In both cases, the number of required visits increase. In an example of woodland bird monitoring in the Mt. Lofty Ranges, South Australia, we show that, although the budget required to monitor a relatively rare species of low detectability may be higher than that for a common, easily detectable species, survey design requirements for common species may be more stringent. We discuss implications for multi-species monitoring programs and application of our methods to more complex monitoring problems.