A FIELD-BASED EVALUATION OF A PRESENCE–ABSENCE PROTOCOL FOR MONITORING ECOREGIONAL-SCALE BIODIVERSITY

Abstract

Abstract Declines in populations of many species across the United States are prompting the need for monitoring programs that can detect population change effectively for large suites of species. The proliferation of reliable standardized monitoring techniques enhances the potential that we may meet these burgeoning information needs. However, multiple-species monitoring approaches are still a rarity. In an attempt to meet monitoring information needs on National Forest System (NFS) lands, the U.S. Forest Service developed the Multiple Species Inventory and Monitoring (MSIM) protocol, an approach that employs a variety of vertebrate and habitat survey methods to obtain presence–absence data for a broad spectrum of species at a systematic array of sample points throughout ecoregions. A recent evaluation of the MSIM protocol predicted that its implementation across the Sierra Nevada ecoregion would detect a 20% change in proportion of points occupied for 76% of the species with 80% confidence and power. Thi...