Assessing recovery of spectacled eiders using a Bayesian decision analysis

Autor: James B. Grand, Erik E. Osnas, Julian B. Fischer, Kylee Dunham, Charles J. Frost
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Decision Analysis
Conservation Biology
Endangered species
Ecological Parameter Monitoring
Social Sciences
Geographical locations
Abundance (ecology)
Yukon Territory
Psychology
Conservation Science
education.field_of_study
Multidisciplinary
biology
Animal Behavior
Ecology
Population size
Eukaryota
Eider
Geography
Ducks
Vertebrates
Engineering and Technology
Medicine
Management Engineering
Research Article
Ecological Metrics
Science
Population
Wildlife
Animal Sexual Behavior
Research and Analysis Methods
Decision Support Techniques
Birds
Population Metrics
Animals
education
Population Growth
Decision Making
Organizational

Behavior
Population Biology
Endangered Species
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Organisms
Biology and Life Sciences
Bayes Theorem
biology.organism_classification
United States
Fishery
Extinction Risk
Threatened species
Amniotes
North America
People and places
Zoology
Alaska
Decision analysis
Zdroj: PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 7, p e0253895 (2021)
PLoS ONE
ISSN: 1932-6203
Popis: Assessing species status and making classification decisions under the Endangered Species Act is a critical step towards effective species conservation. However, classification decisions are liable to two errors: i) failing to classify a species as threatened or endangered that should be classified (underprotection), or ii) classifying a species as threatened or endangered when it is not warranted (overprotection). Recent surveys indicate threatened spectacled eider populations are increasing in western Alaska, prompting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider the federal listing status. There are multiple criteria set for assessing spectacled eider status, and here we focus on the abundance and decision analysis criteria. We estimated population metrics using state-space models for Alaskan breeding populations of spectacled eiders. We projected abundance over 50 years using posterior estimates of abundance and process variation to estimate the probability of quasi-extinction. The decision analysis maps the risk of quasi-extinction to the loss associated with making a misclassification error (i.e., underprotection) through a loss function. Our results indicate that the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta breeding population in western Alaska has met the recovery criteria but the Arctic Coastal Plain population in northern Alaska has not. The methods employed here provide an example of accounting for uncertainty and incorporating value judgements in such a way that the decision-makers may understand the risk of committing a misclassification error. Incorporating the abundance threshold and decision analysis in the reclassification criteria greatly increases the transparency and defensibility of the classification decision, a critical aspect for making effective decisions about species management and conservation.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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