This book gives a unifying framework for estimating the abundance of open populations: populations subject to births, deaths and movement, given imperfect measurements or samples of the populations. The focus is primarily on populations of vertebrates for which dynamics are typically modelled within the framework of an annual cycle, and for which stochastic variability in the demographic processes is usually modest. Discrete-time models are developed in which animals can be assigned to discrete states such as age class, gender, maturity, population (within a metapopulation), or species (for multi-species models). The book goes well beyond estimation of abundance, allowing inference on underlying population processes such as birth or recruitment, survival and movement. This requires the formulation and fitting of population dynamics models. The resulting fitted models yield both estimates of abundance and estimates of parameters characterizing the underlying processes.

This book gives a unifying framework for estimating the abundance of open populations: populations subject to births, deaths and movement, given imperfect measurements or samples of the populations. The focus is primarily on populations of vertebrates for which dynamics are typically modelled within the framework of an annual cycle, and for which stochastic variability in the demographic processes is usually modest. Discrete-time models are developed in which animals can be assigned to discrete states such as age class, gender, maturity, population (within a metapopulation), or species (for multi-species models). The book goes well beyond estimation of abundance, allowing inference on underlying population processes such as birth or recruitment, survival and movement. This requires the formulation and fitting of population dynamics models. The resulting fitted models yield both estimates of abundance and estimates of parameters characterizing the underlying processes.

This is the first book to provide an accessible comprehensive introduction to wildlife population assessment methods. It uses a new approach that makes the full range of methods accessible in a way that has not previously been possible. Traditionally, newcomers to the field have had to face the daunting prospect of grasping new concepts for almost every one of the many methods. In contrast, this book uses a single conceptual (and statistical) framework for all the methods. This makes understanding the apparently different methods easier because each can be seen to be a special case of the general framework. The approach provides a natural bridge between simple methods and recently developed methods. It also links closed population methods quite naturally with open population methods. The book is accompanied by free software on the web, in the form of an R library, allowing readers to get some "hands-on" experience with the methods and how they perform in different contexts - without the considerable effort and expense required to do this in the real world. It also provides a tool for teaching the methods, including a means for teachers to generate examples and exercises customised to the needs of their students. As the first truly up-to-date and introductory text in the field, this book should become a standard reference for students and professionals in the fields of statistics, biology and ecology.

This study concerns the use of distance sampling to estimate the density or abundance of biological populations. Line and point transect sampling are the primary distance methods. Here, lines or points are surveyed in the field and the observer records a distance to those objects of interest that are detected. The sample data are the set of distances of detected objects and any relevant covariates; however, many objects may remain undetected during the course of the survey. Distance sampling provides a way to obtain reliable estimates of density of objects under fairly mild assumptions. Distance sampling is an extension of plot sampling methods where it is assumed that all objects within sample plots are counted. The objective of this book is to provide a comprehensive treatment of distance sampling theory and application. It covers the theory and application of distance sampling with emphasis on line and point transects. Specialized applications are noted briefly, such as trapping webs and cue counts. General considerations are given to the design of distance sampling surveys.