A quantitative survey of avian population densities in a heterogeneous tropical urban landscape

作者：Tan David J X^*

来源：Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 2016, 95-104.

• distance sampling
• urban ecology
• avian population density estimation

Although birds are one of the most well studied taxa in Singapore, little remains known about absolute population estimates for various bird species owing to the prevalence of measures of relative abundance as the chief form of estimating bird populations. This pilot study is a first attempt at obtaining baseline absolute population density estimates for common bird species by applying distance sampling theory in a highly patchy and heterogeneous landscape-the Kent Ridge Campus of the National University of Singapore. The results suggest that distance sampling generally outperforms relative abundance estimates owing to its ability to account for variations in detectability across different species and habitat types. The results demonstrate that distance sampling is a viable technique for estimating absolute population densities in heterogeneous landscapes like Singapore so long as certain assumptions and caveats of survey design are taken into account. This study therefore proposes that distance sampling be considered in future bird population surveys to allow for more reliable density estimates to be obtained, which would go to no small length toward better informing and shaping conservation policy in the future.

• 出版日期2016-5-6