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- Title
A new potential method to estimate abundance of small game species.
- Authors
Shoko, Cletah; Masocha, Mhosisi; Dube, Timothy
- Abstract
This study tested the hypothesis that nonlinear transects, such as the L-, V- and W-shaped transect, which are widely used in soil sampling but rarely in ecology, may perform better in capturing habitat heterogeneity potentially resulting in more accurate small game species estimates, than straight-line transects. To test this, we computed and compared the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) captured by the straight-line, L-shaped, V-shaped and W-shaped transects for Kyle Game Reserve (Zimbabwe), inside the home ranges of two small game species, namely species A and species B. These transects differed in geometry but had the same length. We also performed simulations in a geographic information system environment to compare the detection ability of the different transect geometry. One-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey's honest significant difference test was used to test for significant differences in the mean number of detections and NDVI variance captured by each transect geometry. Simulations results indicate that for both home ranges, the V-shaped transect resulted in significantly higher detections than the widely used straight-line transect. Nonlinear transects also yielded higher NDVI variances than the straight-line transect in both home ranges.
- Subjects
SMALL game animals; SPECIES; GAME &; game-birds; BIOLOGICAL classification; GENETICS
- Publication
African Journal of Ecology, 2015, Vol 53, Issue 4, p406
- ISSN
0141-6707
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/aje.12211