Leveraging the strengths of citizen science and structured surveys to achieve scalable inference on population size

Population size is a key metric for management and policy decisions, yet wildlife monitoring programs are often limited by the spatial and temporal scope of surveys. In these cases, citizen science data may provide complementary information at higher resolution and greater extent. We present a case study demonstrating how data from the eBird citizen science program can be combined with regional monitoring efforts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to produce high-resolution estimates of golden eagle abundance. We developed a model that uses aerial survey data from the western United States to calibrate high-resolution annual estimates of relative abundance from eBird. Using this model, we compared regional population size estimates based on the calibrated eBird information to those based on aerial survey data alone. Population size estimates based on the calibrated eBird information had strong correspondence to estimates from aerial survey data in two out of four regions, and popula...种群规模是支撑管理与政策决策的关键指标，但野生动物监测项目往往受限于调查的时空范围。在此类场景下，公民科学数据可提供更高分辨率、更广覆盖范围的补充信息。 本研究通过案例研究展示了如何将eBird公民科学项目（eBird）的数据与美国鱼类及野生动物管理局（U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service）的区域监测工作相结合，以生成金雕种群丰度的高分辨率估算结果。我们开发了一款模型，利用美国西部的航空调查数据对来自eBird的相对丰度年度高分辨率估算值进行校准。依托该模型，我们对比了基于校准后eBird信息的区域种群规模估算结果，与仅基于航空调查数据得到的估算结果。 基于校准后eBird信息的种群规模估算结果在四个区域中的两个区域与航空调查数据得到的估算结果具有高度一致性，且种群...