|
2006
pilot surveys |
||
|
Consultations |
As
part of NARRS Phase 1, we engaged in wide consultations to gather
people's views on how to design effective and workable monitoring
schemes for the widespread amphibians and reptiles. Anyone with experience
of amphibian and/or reptile survey was invited to contribute, and
we circulated several consultation documents and held several workshops
at the ARG UK Herpetofauna Workers' Meeting in Coventry. We wanted
to make use of people's expertise in order to help us to design survey
methodologies that would strike the right balance between our needs
for good detailed data, and the needs of volunteers. We received a
large amount of feedback on these consultations - which has duly been
built into our development work - and we heartily thank all those
who contributed. |
|||
Key
issues and concerns that cropped up regularly include the need for
sufficient training, support for the ARGs, equipment and finances,
landowner permissions, maintaining volunteer interest, matching volunteer
skills to the task, and practical limitations such as time and distance.
We also asked for views on what parameters ought to be recorded during
surveys, and what techniques were most effective and/or most practical.
We need to agree fixed protocols so that all surveyors can survey
in the same way, and the data from all over the country will be comparable.
The amazing plethora of feedback we received confirmed that everyone
likes to use their own tried and tested methods, and that it will
be difficult to design something that everyone agrees on and that
people will want to take part in. |
|||
| Developing survey protocols | |||
A
number of things are already clear from our work so far. The rationale
for these monitoring schemes is to assess trends in 'conservation
status' of species (i.e. biological status plus external influences/prospects)
at different geographical scales. The sampling unit must be the same
size everywhere, and surveys must be carried out in the same way everywhere.
The number of sampling sites will need to be sufficient for us to
make statistically robust conclusions of species status. A large number
will have to be randomly selected too. (To help us, we sought advice
from the British Trust for Ornithology). |
|||
At
present, we have opted for presence-absence surveys, as it is difficult
to standardise count procedures everywhere, and we need better knowledge
on the relationship between counts and population sizes. This would
give us 'occupancy rates' for each species. In other words, the percentage
of surveyed sites in which a species was found. We will still allow
people to collect count data if they wish, however, as long as their
presence-absence data is collected. (We intend to set up an online
recording system so that data entry will be carried out via the Internet).
For widespread amphibians, we could ask volunteers either to survey
single ponds or to carry out blanket surveys of 1km squares. Blanket
surveys are more time-consuming, but they can give a very local figure
for pond occupancy, and volunteers could work together to complete
one. For reptiles, we have chosen 1km square as the sampling unit.
To develop our sampling approaches and protocols further, we set up
some pilot surveys. |
|||
 |
 |
