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Reliability of noninvasive genetic census of otters compared to field censuses

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Abstract

Conservation and management actions are often highly dependent on accurate estimations of population sizes. However, these estimates are difficult to obtain for elusive and rare species. We compared two census methods for Eurasian otter: snow tracking and noninvasive genetic census based on the genotyping of faecal samples. With the noninvasive genetic census we detected the presence of almost twice as many otters as with snow tracking (23 and 10–15, respectively), and mark-recapture estimates based on the genetic census indicated that the real number of otters could be even higher. Our results indicate that snow tracking tends to underestimate the number of individuals and also that it is more susceptible to subjective assessment. We compared the strengths and weaknesses of the two methods.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Reija Dufva and Fredrik Wickström for valuable technical assistance and Fredrik Widemo for planning and comments in the early phase of the study; the Department of Vertebrate Zoology (Peter Mortensen) and the Environmental Specimen Bank (Contaminant Research Group, Anna Roos) at the Swedish Museum of Natural History for providing tissue samples (museum accession numbers: NRM 935027, 935222, 945004, 945093, 945108, 945174, 955047, 955190, 965041, 965109, 965200, 975089, 975101, 975132, 985012, 995003, 995156, 995164, 995224, 995240); and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments. This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council for Environmental, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS) and Uppsala University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Animal Ecology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyv 18D, 752 36, Uppsala, Sweden

    Johanna Arrendal & Mats Björklund

  2. Department of Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyv 18D, 752 36, Uppsala, Sweden

    Carles Vilà

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  1. Johanna Arrendal
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  2. Carles Vilà
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  3. Mats Björklund
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Correspondence to Johanna Arrendal.

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Arrendal, J., Vilà, C. & Björklund, M. Reliability of noninvasive genetic census of otters compared to field censuses. Conserv Genet 8, 1097–1107 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-006-9266-y

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