Wagner Benjamin, Garnick Sarah W, Ryan Michael F, Isaac Joanne L, Begg Alana, Nitschke Craig R
School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, Richmond, Victoria, Australia.
Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Ecol Appl. 2025 Sep;35(6):e70091. doi: 10.1002/eap.70091.
Sound methods to determine species occurrence and abundance are crucial for successful wildlife management and conservation. When species communities cannot be readily detected using camera traps or acoustic monitoring, ground survey methods such as spotlighting on foot are commonly used. While able to provide precise detection and density estimates, these methods can be laborious and time consuming and are restricted to surveying small areas. Advances in drone technology now allow for the detection of heat signatures of endothermal wildlife using thermal cameras from the sky, which we contrast to traditional ground surveys. We found that drone and ground surveys achieve similar detection probabilities for nocturnal arboreal mammals of southeastern Australia. Drones achieved high detection rates for targeted arboreal wildlife occurrence and consistently recorded more species and individuals than ground-based surveys via spotlighting. Ground surveys often missed specialist species like the endangered southern greater glider (Petauroides volans) when populations had low densities. Drone-derived density estimates for surveyed areas of 100-200 ha were significantly lower than those extrapolated from 10-ha ground survey results. Thermal drone surveys present a promising tool for measuring and monitoring nocturnal arboreal wildlife populations due to their ability to cover larger areas with comparable detection rates to ground surveys. Drone surveys provide comprehensive information on species assemblage, density, and distribution across management compartment-scale survey areas, offering valuable insights into species occurrence and population status. Drones were particularly effective in areas with dense vegetation or that were otherwise inaccessible for ground-based surveys, enhancing the ability to estimate populations, quantify recovery following large-scale disturbances, and to discover previously undocumented populations. Drone-based wildlife survey methods have the potential to reduce uncertainty in compartment-scale population estimates for improved wildlife monitoring and conservation.
确定物种出现情况和数量的可靠方法对于成功的野生动物管理和保护至关重要。当使用相机陷阱或声学监测无法轻易检测到物种群落时，通常会采用地面调查方法，如徒步聚光灯照明。虽然这些方法能够提供精确的检测和密度估计，但可能费力且耗时，并且仅限于对小面积区域进行调查。无人机技术的进步现在使得能够从空中使用热成像相机检测恒温野生动物的热信号，我们将其与传统地面调查进行了对比。我们发现，无人机和地面调查对于澳大利亚东南部夜间树栖哺乳动物的检测概率相似。无人机在目标树栖野生动物出现方面实现了高检测率，并且通过聚光灯照明持续记录到比地面调查更多的物种和个体。当种群密度较低时，地面调查常常会遗漏像濒危的南部大滑翔机（Petauroides volans）这样的特化物种。对于100 - 200公顷调查区域，无人机得出的密度估计值显著低于从10公顷地面调查结果推断出的值。热成像无人机调查是一种很有前景的工具，可用于测量和监测夜间树栖野生动物种群，因为它们能够以与地面调查相当的检测率覆盖更大的区域。无人机调查提供了关于物种组合、密度以及跨管理分区尺度调查区域分布的全面信息，为物种出现情况和种群状况提供了有价值的见解。无人机在植被茂密或地面调查难以到达的区域特别有效，增强了估计种群数量、量化大规模干扰后的恢复情况以及发现以前未记录种群的能力。基于无人机的野生动物调查方法有可能减少分区尺度种群估计中的不确定性，以改进野生动物监测和保护。
