{"id":1732,"date":"2014-05-28T17:30:23","date_gmt":"2014-05-28T22:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=1732"},"modified":"2014-05-28T20:17:50","modified_gmt":"2014-05-29T01:17:50","slug":"does-counting-tracks-to-estimate-animal-populations-actually-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/does-counting-tracks-to-estimate-animal-populations-actually-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Does counting tracks to estimate animal populations actually work?<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1669\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Canada-lynx2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1669\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1669\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Canada-lynx2.jpg\" alt=\"A new study shows that counting animal tracks - like these from a rarely-seen Canada lynx - can provide an accurate estimate of how many individuals are in a given area. (Photo credit: Derek Keeping)\" width=\"250\" height=\"329\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Canada-lynx2.jpg 250w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Canada-lynx2-227x300.jpg 227w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1669\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new study shows that counting animal tracks &#8211; like these from a rarely-seen Canada lynx &#8211; can provide an accurate estimate of how many individuals are in a given area. (Photo credit: Derek Keeping)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A new computer analysis shows that animal tracks can provide an accurate estimate of animal populations in a given area.\u00a0<\/span>Biologists often use animal tracks for relative estimates &#8211; e.g. more over here than over there &#8211; but because tracks can twist and turn, they shy away from using them to get an absolute number of animals per area.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A computer simulation of \u2018virtual animals\u2019 has validated an older Russian hypothesis, showing that there is a direct relationship between tracks and population that doesn\u2019t depend on how convoluted the trackways are. This means that tracks can safely be used to estimate numbers of hard-to-find animals, offering a new tool for conservationists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.plosone.org\/article\/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0096598\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in the the journal\u00a0<em>PLOS ONE\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<strong>May 28, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Derek Keeping, University of Alberta, Alberta<\/span><\/h4>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Rick Pelletier, University of Alberta, Alberta<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new computer analysis shows that animal tracks can provide an accurate estimate of animal populations in a given area.\u00a0Biologists often use animal tracks for relative estimates &#8211; e.g. more over here than over there &#8211; but because tracks can twist and turn, they shy away from using them to get an absolute number of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1669,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[180,39,174,170,113,1445,215,1632],"class_list":["post-1732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-alberta","tag-animal-behaviour","tag-animals","tag-biodiversity","tag-biology","tag-conservation","tag-environment","tag-tracking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Canada-lynx2.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-rW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1732"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1751,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions\/1751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}