Estimating production in ducks: a comparison between ground surveys and unmanned aircraft surveys

Pöysä, Hannu; Kotilainen, Juho; Väänänen, Veli‐Matti; Kunnasranta, Mervi

doi:10.1007/s10344-018-1238-2

Cited by 31 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…An important next step in UAV research will be controlled experiments to evaluate how microhabitat‐specific temperature and humidity affect detectability with a thermal camera at the time of observation. Nevertheless, we anticipate that UAVs may eventually revolutionize many aspects of wildlife research (Linchant et al 2015), and our study demonstrates that their potential use in avian nesting ecology can vary dramatically by species and their associated microhabitat preferences (Pöysä et al 2018). Additional studies of other species and in different habitat types will be essential for determining where UAVs can reliably detect nests and animals, and thereby what questions can be answered using this rapidly growing technology.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…UAVs have been used to estimate the size of congregations of birds (> 1000 individuals) such as wintering populations of Snow Geese ( Anser caerulescens ) and Canada Geese ( Branta canadensis ), as well as numbers of colonial‐nesting birds with more precision and accuracy than corresponding ground surveys (Chabot and Bird 2012, Sardá‐Palomera et al 2012). Recently, Pöysä et al (2018) used a UAV to search for duck broods in Finland and showed that UAV surveys detected the same number of broods as ground teams, and more accurately enumerated ducklings. However, most of the aforementioned studies involved surveys of highly visible species and relied on optical cameras attached to a UAV.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Applications of an unmanned aerial vehicle and thermal‐imaging camera to study ducks nesting over water

et al. 2020

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Finding and monitoring nests are key components of avian research, but they are often expensive, time-consuming, and inefficient operations. This is certainly true for diving ducks that nest in wetlands with thick emergent vegetation where nests are typically located by teams of technicians that wade through a marsh and beat vegetation with sticks, hoping to flush incubating females or encounter nests without a female present. Taking advantage of recent advances in both unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and thermal-imaging cameras, our objectives were to (1) compare our ability to locate duck nests using a UAV and using traditional on-foot searching methods, and (2) determine if nests monitored remotely with the UAV had different survival rates than nests monitored with traditional nest-site visits. We searched for nests with a UAV system in southern Manitoba during the springs of 2018 and 2019. Using the UAV, we located 48 nests not found by ground crews, ground crews found 164 nests not found with the UAV, and 71 nests were found using both methods. Overall, nests were less likely to be detected with the UAV (0.34) than by ground crews (0.71), but surveys were completed approximately four times faster with the UAV. Detectability of nests varied among duck species (range = 0.55-0.04). We found no difference in nest survival between nests monitored with the UAV (0.95) and those repeatedly visited by ground crews (0.95). However, in 2018, ground monitoring resulted in 19 nests being abandoned by females, compared to only one monitored with the UAV. Our results demonstrate that UAVs equipped with thermal cameras can be used to find nests of ducks located over water, with greater success for species that nest earlier and those whose nests are not buried under matted vegetation. Furthermore, monitoring nests with the UAV resulted in lower rates of nest abandonment, and survival of nests monitored with the UAV was similar to that of nests monitored using traditional methods. Additional species-and habitat-specific studies are needed to fully understand the utility and challenges associated with using UAVs equipped with thermal imaging to survey species of wetland wildlife.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

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confidence: 99%

Applications of an unmanned aerial vehicle and thermal‐imaging camera to study ducks nesting over water

et al. 2020

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“…Ground‐based surveys, especially those in which an airboat is involved, would likely encourage broods to seek refuge in nearby escape cover, therefore hindering the survey. Unmanned aerial vehicles have been used to survey broods across a variety of landscapes (Pöysä et al 2018) and cause little disturbance to breeding birds (Barr et al 2020). Additionally, unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with thermal‐imaging cameras allow researchers to identify the presence of broods even when in dense vegetative cover.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Breeding Ecology of Mottled Ducks: A Review

Bonczek

Ringelman

2021

J Wildl Manag

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Mottled ducks (Anas fulvigula) are endemic to the Gulf Coast of North America, and their range stretches from Alabama to the Laguna Madre of Mexico, with a distinct population in peninsular Florida and an introduced population in South Carolina. As one of the few non‐migratory ducks in North America, mottled ducks depend on a variety of locally available habitat throughout the annual cycle, and threats to these landscapes may affect mottled ducks more acutely than migratory species. Annual population monitoring has revealed declines in mottled duck populations in Texas and Louisiana since 2008, and the genetic integrity of the Florida population has been muddled by the presence of large numbers of feral mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) resulting in hybridization. Similar to other closely related dabbling ducks, mottled duck populations are influenced by recruitment and breeding season survival, so changes in these factors may contribute to population decline. Accordingly, researchers have attempted to address various aspects of mottled duck breeding season ecology and population dynamics since the 1950s. We conducted a literature review on this topic by searching a combination of key terms using Google Scholar, including mottled duck, nesting ecology, habitat use, breeding incidence, nest success, brood, and breeding season survival, and followed citation trees to eventually aggregate information from nearly 50 publications on mottled duck breeding ecology. Our review concluded that mottled ducks use brackish and intermediate coastal marsh, including managed impoundments, and agricultural land during the breeding season. Their nests can be found in pastures, levees, dry cordgrass marsh, cutgrass marsh, spoil banks, and small islands. Nesting propensity and nest success estimates are often lower than other waterfowl species that are characterized by stable or increasing populations. Broods use wetlands composed of a mix of open water with submerged and emergent vegetation. Breeding season survival is higher for the Florida population than the western Gulf Coast population, but adult survival in both geographies is comparable to (or higher than) that of other dabbling duck species. Breeding habitat use, breeding season survival, and nest‐site selection and success have been studied extensively in mottled ducks, whereas information on nesting propensity, renesting intensity, and post‐hatch ecology is lacking. © 2021 The Wildlife Society.

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“…Small unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, may represent a convenient, low‐disturbance, and accurate method for remotely surveying colonial marshbirds. There has been a major uptake of drone technology in the field of wildlife research and management in recent years (Chabot & Bird, 2015), and accounts of its use to survey breeding waterbirds have rapidly multiplied (e.g., Chabot et al, 2015; Hodgson et al, 2016; Lyons et al, 2019; Pöysä et al, 2018; Sardà‐Palomera et al, 2012). In some cases, the accuracy of drone surveys has even been shown to exceed that of traditional ground‐based surveys, particularly in situations where the drone can achieve a superior vantage point for observing the birds than ground surveyors (Brisson‐Curadeau et al, 2017; Hodgson et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dual visible‐thermal camera approach facilitates drone surveys of colonial marshbirds

McKellar

Shephard

Chabot

2020

Remote Sens Ecol Conserv

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Waterbirds are important indicators of wetland health, and understanding their status and trends is necessary for appropriate management and conservation. However, certain species are challenging to survey due to their sensitivity to disturbance and the difficulty of accessing their breeding habitats. This is especially true for colonially breeding marshbirds, for which a multi‐species survey protocol that maximizes accuracy of counts and minimizes disturbance does not exist. Small drone aircraft have shown promise for conducting accurate and low‐disturbance surveys of colonial waterbirds. However, complex marsh vegetation structures and the cryptic nature of some marshbird nests make them difficult to detect in aerial imagery. We used synchronous high‐resolution visible imagery (0.8–2 cm/pixel) and thermal‐infrared imagery (6–16 cm/pixel) captured from a drone to count nests of five species of marshbirds at eight colonies in Saskatchewan, Canada. We compared counts from the imagery to those obtained from traditional ground‐based surveys, generally considered the most accurate survey method for these species. The two types of imagery proved highly complementary, as heat signatures helped detect and confirm nests not easily spotted in the visible imagery, while the detailed visible imagery allowed species identification. For four species (Western Grebe Aechmophorus occidentalis, Franklin's Gull Leucophaeus pipixcan, Forster's Tern Sterna forsteri, and Black‐crowned Night‐Heron Nycticorax nycticorax), drone‐based counts (range 74–1524 nests per colony) were within 5% of ground‐based counts (range 75–1582), while for smaller Black Tern Chlidonias niger colonies (range 3–7 nests), counts from the two methods were always within one nest of each other. Furthermore, an assessment of flight behavior before, during, and after drone surveys found no significant evidence of disturbance by the drone. Our drone‐borne dual visible‐thermal camera approach proved promising for surveying colonial marshbirds and could potentially be implemented in a range of situations where wildlife subjects are difficult to survey with visible or thermal imagery alone.

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Estimating production in ducks: a comparison between ground surveys and unmanned aircraft surveys

Cited by 31 publications

References 17 publications

Applications of an unmanned aerial vehicle and thermal‐imaging camera to study ducks nesting over water

Applications of an unmanned aerial vehicle and thermal‐imaging camera to study ducks nesting over water

Breeding Ecology of Mottled Ducks: A Review

Dual visible‐thermal camera approach facilitates drone surveys of colonial marshbirds

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