snow leopard population monitoring - panda
TRANSCRIPT
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Snow Leopard Population Monitoring
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How well are conservation efforts working?
Are snow leopards increasing? Stable?
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How many snow leopards are there?
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Monitoring snow leopard population status & trends
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Our early attempts to
monitor snow leopards
Sign - an indicator of cat numbers
Relationship between sign and cat numbers is unclear
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Better Science:
Novel tools to monitor leopards
Camera Traps
Genetics
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Nice pictures… wrong animals.
Quickly deplete film and batteries.
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2010
2008: Digital camera traps Black and white 2 pictures per second 25,000+ picture capacity Long battery life (6+ months)
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Impressive results
High “capture” rate
Many images per encounter
Image quality excellent
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Summer 2010:
4-week mark-recapture camera-based population assessment
40 Cameras ~ 1,300 km2 sampling area
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Results:
• 18,253 total photos
• 645 snow leopard photos
• 34 snow leopard encounters
• SL photos per encounter: 5 min - 85 max
• Identified 16 individual adults (plus 6 cubs)
• Mark-Recapture analyses = 22 adults (95% CI: 16 – 26)
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Using fecal DNA to monitor snow leopards
~
Identify individuals & sex
Estimate cat numbers
Detect changes over time
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Challenges: Camera placement can be ‘interesting.’
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It’s a huge area to search and not just snow leopards are using it!
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Site occupancy as a surrogate variable for monitoring snow leopards
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Hypothetical relationship between population and cell occupancy
y = 0.014x0.8733
R² = 0.9762
y = 0.0856x0.5861
R² = 0.8946
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Occupan
cy
Population
5k Grid Occupancy
10k Grid Occupancy
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Grid cells for occupancy surveys
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Cells Occupied by 1 - 30 leopards During a 7-Day Period
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Population
Occu
pie
d C
ell
s
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10 x 10 km Cells Occupied by 1 - 30 Leopards During a 7-Day Period
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Population
Occu
pie
d 1
0 x
10 k
m C
ell
s
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Failure of occupancy methods to detect substantial
declines (-20%, 5 yrs, start pop = 25)
R2 = 0.0234
p = 0.7720.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.2302
p = 0.6730.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.1135
p = 0.5140.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.6762
p =0.0450.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
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Failure of occupancy with small populations
(-53%, 5 yrs, start pop = 15)
R2 = 0.0743
p = 0.601
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.5565
p = 0.0886
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.6936
p = 0.039
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.2092
p = 0.362
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
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A failed experiment? Perhaps not…..
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Diet analyses via DNA barcoding
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Fecal DNA amplification with universal primers
High throughout Solexa sequencers
Species identification via DNA barcoding
DIET
GenBank
Reference database
Diet analyses via DNA barcoding
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Diet composition at fine scale
1%
2%11%
20%66% Ibex
Domestic goat
Argali
Domestic sheep
Chukar
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Better Science:
Novel tools to monitor leopards
Camera Traps
Intensive camera study: China & Kyrgyzstan, 2005
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