Abstract
Reliable estimates of the size of natural populations are required by national and regional governments for management and conservation, by international commissions that manage natural resources, and by NGOs. Distance sampling, in which distances of detected animals from a set of randomly located lines or points are recorded, is the most widely-applicable technique for obtaining such estimates. Almost all users of distance sampling methods use software and methods developed at St Andrews. Software Distance [5] is the industry standard and has over 30,000 registered users from around 115 countries. The methodological developments and associated software have allowed better-informed decisions to be made in the management and conservation of populations as diverse as whales, seals, fish, elephants, apes, deer, birds, ants, trees and flowering plants.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Buckland, S.T., Anderson, D.R., Burnham, K.P., Laake, J.L.: Distance Sampling: Estimating Abundance of Biological Populations. Chapman and Hall, London (1993)
Buckland, S.T., Anderson, D.R., Burnham, K.P., Laake, J.L., Borchers, D.L., Thomas, L.: Introduction to Distance Sampling: Estimating Abundance of Biological Populations. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2001)
Buckland, S.T., Anderson, D.R., Burnham, K.P., Laake, J.L., Borchers, D.L., Thomas, L.: Advanced Distance Sampling. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2004)
Buckland, S.T., Rexstad, E.A., Marques, T.A., Oedekoven, C.S.: Distance Sampling: Methods and Applications. Springer, New York (2015)
Thomas, L., Buckland, S.T., Rexstad, E.A., Laake, J.L., Strindberg, S., Hedley, S.L., Bishop, J.R.B., Marques, T.A., Burnham, K.P.: Distance software: design and analysis of distance sampling surveys for estimating population size. J. Appl. Ecol. 47, 5–14 (2010)
Acknowledgments
Organisations sponsoring software (Distance) development include EPSRC, BBSRC, US Office of Naval Research, US Navy Living Marine Resources program, US National Park Service, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Buckland, S.T., Rexstad, E., Thomas, L., Borchers, D.L. (2016). Distance Sampling Surveys of Population Size: Enabling Better Decision-Making by Wildlife Managers. In: Aston, P., Mulholland, A., Tant, K. (eds) UK Success Stories in Industrial Mathematics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25454-8_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25454-8_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-25452-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-25454-8
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)