Noninvasive Estimation of Black Bear Abundance Incorporating Genotyping Errors and Harvested Bear

Estimating black bear (Ursus americanus) population size is a difficult but important requirement when justifying harvest quotas and managing populations. Advancements in genetic techniques provide a means to identify individual bears using DNA contained in tissue and hair samples, thereby permittin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	The Journal of wildlife management Vol. 71; no. 8; pp. 2684 - 2693
Main Authors:	DREHER, BRIAN P, WINTERSTEIN, SCOTT R, SCRIBNER, KIM T, LUKACS, PAUL M, ETTER, DWAYNE R, ROSA, GUILHERME J. M, LOPEZ, VERONICA A, LIBANTS, SCOT, FILCEK, KRISTI B
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Oxford, UK The Wildlife Society 01-11-2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Subjects:	Bears black bear Black bears Coefficient of variation Culling Deoxyribonucleic acid DNA Environmental conditions Error rates Estimates Federal funding Genetic loci Genotypes genotyping error Habitats Hair hair snare Harvest Management decisions mark-recapture Michigan microsatellite noninvasive Population estimates population estimation Population number Probability Public lands Quality control Research s Roads & highways Statistical models Studies subsampling Tissue samples Ursus americanus Wildlife management
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Summary:	Estimating black bear (Ursus americanus) population size is a difficult but important requirement when justifying harvest quotas and managing populations. Advancements in genetic techniques provide a means to identify individual bears using DNA contained in tissue and hair samples, thereby permitting estimates of population abundance based on established mark–capture–recapture methodology. We expand on previous noninvasive population-estimation work by geographically extending sampling areas (36,848 km2) to include the entire Northern Lower Peninsula (NLP) of Michigan, USA. We selected sampling locations randomly within biologically relevant bear habitat and used barbed wire hair snares to collect hair samples. Unlike previous noninvasive studies, we used tissue samples from harvested bears as an additional sampling occasion to increase recapture probabilities. We developed subsampling protocols to account for both spatial and temporal variance in sample distribution and variation in sample quality using recently published quality control protocols using 5 microsatellite loci. We quantified genotyping errors using samples from harvested bears and estimated abundance using statistical models that accounted for genotyping error. We estimated the population of yearling and adult black bears in the NLP to be 1,882 bears (95% CI = 1,389–2,551 bears). The derived population estimate with a 15% coefficient of variation was used by wildlife managers to examine the sustainability of harvest over a large geographic area.
Bibliography:	istex:6D46286C924FC1C9B973F5A4D6FDF0E1C3753D16 ark:/67375/WNG-56M7X98X-2 ArticleID:JWMG308 University of Wisconsin‐Madison, 456 Animal Science Building, 1675 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA E‐mail Colorado Division of Wildlife, 4255 Sinton Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80907, USA brian.dreher@state.co.us Chequamegon‐Nicolet National Forest, 1170 Fourth Avenue S., Park Falls, WI 84552, USA Colorado Division of Wildlife, 317 West Prospect, Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0022-541X 1937-2817
DOI:	10.2193/2006-398