{"id":2790,"date":"2011-01-13T11:20:12","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T11:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/?p=2790"},"modified":"2018-09-13T07:44:26","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T07:44:26","slug":"development-of-standardised-protocols-for-assessing-reptile-and-amphibian-populations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2011\/01\/13\/development-of-standardised-protocols-for-assessing-reptile-and-amphibian-populations\/","title":{"rendered":"Development of standardised protocols for assessing reptile and amphibian populations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/sac\/research\/images\/protocol285x190.jpg\" alt=\"Photo by Brett Lewis\" width=\"285\" height=\"190\" \/><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th scope=\"col\" align=\"left\" valign=\"top\" width=\"30%\">Principal Investigator:<\/th>\n<td scope=\"col\" width=\"70%\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/sac\/staff-profiles\/profiles\/conservation-biology\/academic-staff\/griffiths_richard.html\">Professor Richard Griffiths<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th align=\"left\" valign=\"top\">Project dates:<\/th>\n<td>1 January 2011 &#8211; ongoing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th align=\"left\" valign=\"top\">Funding:<\/th>\n<td>NERC: \u00a385,866; Freshwater Habitats Trust<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th align=\"left\" valign=\"top\">Collaborators:<\/th>\n<td>Natural England; Countryside Council for Wales; Scottish Natural Heritage; ARC Trust; Freshwater Habitats Trust<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/sac\/research\/images\/protocol_cover210x140.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"140\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"10\" \/>Counting animals &#8211; and the number of habitats occupied by animals &#8211; is fundamental to conservation decision-making. Despite recent advances in survey design and analysis, population assessments of amphibians and reptiles almost entirely rely on simple counts that usually bear little relationship to actual population sizes, densities or the number of habitats occupied. This is because simple counts fail to take into account variations in the detectability of animals between habitats, time periods or observers. <img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/sac\/research\/images\/protocol_example210x140.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"140\" align=\"right\" vspace=\"10\" \/>Consequently, the quality of data collected on amphibian and reptile populations is extremely variable. We have been developing and testing survey methods for assessing designs and analytical tools that take account of variations in detectability. This has resulted in revised guidelines for population assessments that have been disseminated to end-users via a NERC-funded knowledge exchange project.\u00a0 Ongoing research is now investigating the potential to use environmental DNA to detect the presence of species and incorporate this method within standard survey protocols.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Principal Investigator: Professor Richard Griffiths Project dates: 1 January 2011 &#8211; ongoing Funding: NERC: \u00a385,866; Freshwater Habitats Trust Collaborators: Natural England; Countryside Council for Wales; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2011\/01\/13\/development-of-standardised-protocols-for-assessing-reptile-and-amphibian-populations\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52672,"featured_media":2799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[159353,6599,70],"tags":[588],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52672"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2800,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790\/revisions\/2800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}