Details zur Publikation |
| Kategorie | Textpublikation |
| Referenztyp | Zeitschriften |
| DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0125684 |
| Titel (primär) | Non-invasive genetic mark-recapture as a means to study population sizes and marking behaviour of the elusive Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) |
| Autor | Lampa, S.; Mihoub, J.-B.; Gruber, B.; Klenke, R.; Henle, K. |
| Quelle | PLOS ONE |
| Erscheinungsjahr | 2015 |
| Department | NSF |
| Band/Volume | 10 |
| Heft | 5 |
| Seite von | e0125684 |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Supplements | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0125684.s001 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0125684.s002 |
| UFZ Querschnittsthemen | RU1 |
| Abstract | Quantifying population status is a key objective in many ecological
studies, but is often difficult to achieve for cryptic or elusive
species. Here, non-invasive genetic capture-mark-recapture (CMR) methods
have become a very important tool to estimate population parameters,
such as population size and sex ratio. The Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra)
is such an elusive species of management concern and is increasingly
studied using faecal-based genetic sampling. For unbiased sex ratios or
population size estimates, the marking behaviour of otters has to be
taken into account. Using 2132 otter faeces of a wild otter population
in Upper Lusatia (Saxony, Germany) collected over six years (2006–2012),
we studied the marking behaviour and applied closed population CMR
models accounting for genetic misidentification to estimate population
sizes and sex ratios. We detected a sex difference in the marking
behaviour of otters with jelly samples being more often defecated by
males and placed actively exposed on frequently used marking sites.
Since jelly samples are of higher DNA quality, it is important to not
only concentrate on this kind of samples or marking sites and to invest
in sufficiently high numbers of repetitions of non-jelly samples to
ensure an unbiased sex ratio. Furthermore, otters seemed to increase
marking intensity due to the handling of their spraints, hence
accounting for this behavioural response could be important. We provided
the first precise population size estimate with confidence intervals
for Upper Lusatia (for 2012: 
= 20 ± 2.1, 95% CI = 16–25) and showed that spraint densities are not a
reliable index for abundances. We further demonstrated that when minks
live in sympatry with otters and have comparably high densities, a
non-negligible number of supposed otter samples are actually of mink
origin. This could severely bias results of otter monitoring if samples
are not genetically identified. |
| dauerhafte UFZ-Verlinkung | https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=16131 |
| Lampa, S., Mihoub, J.-B., Gruber, B., Klenke, R., Henle, K. (2015): Non-invasive genetic mark-recapture as a means to study population sizes and marking behaviour of the elusive Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) PLOS One 10 (5), e0125684 10.1371/journal.pone.0125684 |
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