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Abstract:
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Population spread is a dynamic process that changes in space and time. Survey designs that ignore these dynamics may not capture essential spatio-temporal variability of a process. Alternatively, dynamic survey designs explicitly incorporate knowledge of ecological processes, the associated uncertainty in those processes, and can be optimized with respect to some design criterion. Sea otters were first detected in Glacier Bay in 1993 and have increased in both abundance and distribution since then; abundance estimates have increased from 5 otters to >5,000 otters and they are now distributed across most of the bay. Sea otters were recently identified as a vital sign for long-term ecological monitoring by the National Park Service due to their role as a keystone species, and their influence in structuring nearshore marine communities. We developed a framework for optimal dynamic sampling of a spreading population, and apply our framework to select a survey design for estimating the distribution and abundance of sea otters in Glacier Bay. We consider optimizing future monitoring efforts based on minimizing a design criterion associated with process prediction uncertainty.
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