Additional resources about distance sampling

There is an vast amount of printed material about distance sampling. We did not describe all of it within this online course, but here we point to a few places to gain additional insight into the topics we have discussed during the course.

Books

• Buckland, S.T., Rexstad, E., Marques, T.A. and Oedekoven, C.S. 2015. Distance Sampling: Methods and Applications. Springer, Heidelberg.
  • If you are affiliated with a university, check to see if your library is a member of SpringerLink, in which case, you may be able to download a PDF of the book at no charge.
  • A companion website for this book includes data and analysis using program Distance and R for case studies described in the book.
• Buckland, S.T., Anderson, D.R., Burnham, K.P., Laake, J.L., Borchers, D.L. and Thomas, L. 2001. Introduction to Distance Sampling: Estimating Abundance of Biological Populations. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
• Buckland, S.T., Anderson, D.R., Burnham, K.P. and Laake, J.L. 1993. Distance Sampling: Estimating Abundance of Biological Populations. Chapman and Hall, London.
  • This book has been superseded by the two listed above, but chapters of it can be downloaded at this link.

Paper

• Thomas, L., S.T. Buckland, E.A. Rexstad, J. L. Laake, S. Strindberg, S. L. Hedley, J. R.B. Bishop, T. A. Marques, and K. P. Burnham. 2010. Distance software: design and analysis of distance sampling surveys for estimating population size. Journal of Applied Ecology 47: 5-14.
  • This is the paper we encourage people to cite when then make use of the Distance software in their work. The paper highlights many of the introductory topics we discuss in this course.

Website

• A website dedicated to all things distance sampling is distancesampling.org. Here you can read about software enhancements, workshop offerings and other tips and tricks. In particularly, we recommend a searchable bibliography of distance sampling related publications in the scientific literature.

Papers mentioned in specific lectures

• Lecture 3 of Chapter 2 Point transect case studies and Chapter 7
  • Buckland, S.T. 2006. Point-transect surveys for songbirds: robust methodologies. The Auk 123:345-357.
• Lecture 1 of Chapter 5 Variance estimation of systematic surveys
  • Fewster, R.M., S.T. Buckland, K.P. Burnham, D.L. Borchers, P.E. Jupp, J.L. Laake and L. Thomas. 2009. Estimating the encounter rate in distance sampling. Biometrics 65:225-236.
• Lecture 4 of Chapter 5 Covariates in detection function and Chapter 7
  • Marques, T.A., L. Thomas, S.G. Fancy and S.T. Buckland. 2007. Improving estimates of bird density using multiple covariate distance sampling. The Auk 127:1229-1243.
• Lecture 2 of Chapter 6 Use of multipliers and Chapter 7
  • Buckland, S.T., R.W. Summers, D.L. Borchers and L. Thomas. 2006. Point transect sampling with traps or lures. Journal of Applied Ecology 43:377-384
  • Potts, J.M., S.T. Buckland, L. Thomas and A. Savage. 2012. Estimating abundance of cryptic but trappable animals using trapping point transects: a case study for Key Largo woodrats. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 3:695-703.

Example line transect application

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in India attempts to monitor the size of the tiger population. This also involves monitoring the size of the populations of tiger prey. A video prepared by the WCS available both on the Conservation India website and the WCS India website includes a description of line transect sampling of tiger prey in India.