Fecal standing crop with real time correction using scat detection dogs to estimate population density

Population density is fundamental information for assessing the conservation status of species and support management and conservation actions for in situ populations, but is unknown for many forest species due to their difficulty in detection. The Fecal Standing Crop (FSC) method using detection dogs is an alternative for cryptic or elusive species. An intrinsic difficulty of FSC is the ability to find fecal samples in the field and to estimate the probability of which feces detection is influenced by degradation due to climatic conditions. Our goal was to propose a concurrent FSC parameter estimation using a scat detection dog under different climatic conditions and apply those parameters in a wild deer population. Ten fecal samples of gray brocket deer (Subulo gouazoubira) were placed weekly in a transect (24 x 1200 m) in both dry and wet seasons (12 weeks each). A scat detection dog was then employed to find experimental fecal samples to determine the FSC parameters that were subseq..., , , # Fecal Standing Crop with real time correction using scat detection dogs to estimate population density

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5qfttdzdx](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5qfttdzdx)

This dataset contains a file with two tables. One table was obtained by traversing the experimental transects, and the other was obtained by traversing the density estimation transects. For the first table, we established a 1440 m length transect in the study area with 120 places in 5 distance classes (0, 3, 6, 9 and 12) from the mid-line of the transect on alternating sides of, and perpendicularly to, the mid-line. Then, one day each week for 12 weeks, we randomly selected 10 distances from the beginning and the midline of the transect (two at each distance) at which we placed fresh faecal samples (20 pellets each sample) of gray brocket deer. After the last placement, the transect had a total of 120 samples, with 10 groups from 12 different ages and 24 group in five different perpendicular distance...