Effects of Detectability on Estimates of Geographic Range Size in Bignonieae

Abstract: Extinction risk has not been evaluated for 96% of all described plant species. Given that the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation proposes preliminary conservation assessments of all described plant species by 2010, herbarium specimens (i.e., primary occurrence data) are increasingly being used to infer threat components from estimates of geographic range size. Nevertheless, estimates of range size based on herbarium data may be inaccurate due to collection bias associated with interspecific variation in detectability. We used data on 377 species of Bignonieae to test the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between detectability and estimates of geographic range size derived from herbarium specimens. This relationship is expected if the proportion of the true geographic range size of a species that is documented by herbarium specimens is given by the product of the true geographic range size and the detectability of the species, assuming no relationship between true geographic range size and detectability. We developed 4 measures of detectability that can be estimated from herbarium data and examined the relationship between detectability and 2 types of estimates of geographic range size: area of occupancy and extent of occurrence. Our results from regressing estimates of extent of occurrence and area of occupancy on detectability across genera provided no support for this hypothesis. The same was true for regressions of estimated extent of occurrence on detectability across species within genera. Nevertheless, regressions of estimated area of occupancy on detectability across species within genera provided partial support for our hypothesis. We considered 3 possible explanations for this mixed outcome: violation of the assumption of no relationship between true geographic range size and detectability; the relationships between estimated geographic range size and detectability may be an artifact of a negative relationship between estimated area of occupancy and the sampling variance of detectability; detectability may have had 2 opposite effects on estimated species range sizes: one determines the proportion of the true range of a species documented by herbarium specimens and the other determines the distribution of true range size for the species actually observed with herbarium data. Our findings should help improve understanding of the potential biases incurred with the use of herbarium data.     

Resampling methods for estimating dispersion indices in random and adaptive designs

In many surveys in environmental and natural phenomena the aim is to evaluate the heterogeneity, and the skewness of the distribution of the number point-objects in the study area opportunely partitioned in sub-regions. For this purpose, in this paper the estimation of dispersion indices is considered by using simple random sampling and adaptive sampling with initial simple random sampling selected with replacement or without replacement. The jackknife and the bootstrap procedures are proposed in both cases for reducing bias. Finally, both a simulation study and a case study on biological population referred to a Oidium tuckeri contamination in a growing vineyard is performed to assess the accuracy of the proposed estimators.     

Approximating the distribution of recreational visits from on-site survey data

While convenient and often used, on-site surveys are biased by the fact that users who visit the site more often are proportionately more likely to be sampled. This so-called avidity or size biased sampling results in over-estimating the visitation patterns of the average user. This analysis develops a rule of thumb method that may easily be applied by recreation site managers to visitation data collected on-site in order to infer behavior of the average user of the site. The key assumption that drives the derivation is that the visitation data of users is logarithmically distributed. To evaluate the methodology, we analyze several data sets of recreational users assuming that they reflect the populations of users and from these construct hypothetical on-site samples.     

Estimating the Recreational-Use Value for Hiking in Bellenden Ker National Park, Australia

The recreational-use value of hiking in the Bellenden Ker National Park, Australia has been estimated using a zonal travel cost model. Multiple destination visitors have been accounted for by converting visitors’ own ordinal ranking of the various sites visited to numerical weights, using an expected-value approach. The value of hiking and camping in this national park was found to be $AUS 250,825 per year, or $AUS 144,45 per visitor per year, which is similar to findings from other studies valuing recreational benefits. The management of the park can use these estimates when considering the introduction of a system of user pays fees. In addition, they might be important when decisions need to be made about the allocation of resources for maintenance or upgrade of tracks and facilities.     

巷道超前支护装备的防冲击控制策略研究

针对冲击地压会对巷道超前支护装备产生冲击等不利影响,提出一种基于改进型扰动观测器的控制方法。该方法在常规扰动观测器基础上,增加两个控制器,对理想模型控制器的输出进行动态补偿。使控制器不仅能够对频率较低的外界扰动进行抑制,同时能够对高频的测量噪声干扰进行消除。对其进行数值仿真与模拟实验,结果表明改进后控制方法能够有效降低冲击地压对超前支护装备产生的不利影响。     

Use of heterospecific cues by the lizard Platysaurus broadleyi for food location

Flat lizards (Platysaurus broadleyi) at Augrabies Falls National Park, South Africa, are restricted to rocky terrain where the predominant tree is the Namaqua fig (Ficus cordata cordata). P. broadleyi readily feeds on Namaqua figs when they are available, and the lizards sometimes form large (maximum recorded=134) congregations under fruiting fig trees. The distance lizards travel to fruiting trees also exceed normal daily foraging distances. Location of fruiting fig trees by a lizard can have a high pay-off because figs are energetically rich and trees fruit irregularly and asynchronously, resulting in a resource that is available, but unpredictable in time and space. The prediction that bird activity in fig trees provides a cue to the presence of ripe figs was tested experimentally. By placing cages containing birds and empty control cages in trees devoid of fruit, we demonstrated that P. broadleyi are drawn to fig trees with high bird congregations. We also tested if the presence of a fig tree was necessary to draw lizards to bird congregations by placing cages containing birds and empty control cages in a matched-pairs design on rock away from trees. Namaqua fig trees were not necessary to draw lizards to bird congregations. Received: 12 May 1998 / Accepted after revision: 30 November 1998