1. Traditional occupancy models that record detection/non‐detection (DND) of a species typically rely on either spatial or temporal survey replication to estimate model parameters. Recording the time until a species is first encountered after starting a survey is often possible with little extra effort and such time‐to‐detection (TTD) surveys may be more efficient than pure DND surveys. Using continuous time data, TTD occupancy models can in theory estimate occupancy and detection parameters using a single TTD survey. However, the robustness and general applicability of TTD models has not been widely addressed and their effectiveness in different study systems remains unknown.
2. We use simulations and bird data of 63 species from a field study in the Karoo region of South Africa to explicitly compare estimates of occupancy, detection and species richness between DND and TTD models under various levels of survey replication and for species with different occupancy and detection characteristics.
3. Simulations revealed that for inconspicuous species single survey TTD models can perform better or equally as well as DND models with a higher number of replicates. This effect was attenuated in widespread species. The benefits of TTD models were more pronounced at low survey replicates and performance of the two methods converged quickly as the number of survey replicates increased. However, results from the field data showed that a single TTD survey was not adequate to reliably estimate occupancy, detection and species richness; especially in rare and inconspicuous species. Increasing the number of TTD surveys to two replicates improved the models substantially.
4. Our results demonstrate that the general utility of TTD surveys depends on the characteristics of the species considered in the study. A single TTD survey may be sufficient in some study designs but is unlikely to be sufficient in most multi‐species field scenarios where communities are made up of species that have a wide range of detection and occupancy probabilities. TTD surveys do provide benefits, however, in that data can be used to construct detection curves which can be used to guide survey effort in the design of future studies.

中文翻译：

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具有较少调查重复的检测时间模型能否为传统的站点占用模型提供可靠的替代方案？

1. 记录物种检测/未检测（DND）的传统占用模型通常依赖于空间或时间调查复制来估算模型参数。记录一次调查之后直到首次遇到某个物种的时间通常是可以花费很少的精力而完成的，并且这样的检测时间（TTD）调查可能比纯DND调查更有效。使用连续时间数据，理论上，TTD占用模型可以使用单个TTD调查估算占用率和检测参数。但是，TTD模型的鲁棒性和普遍适用性尚未得到广泛解决，并且它们在不同研究系统中的有效性仍然未知。
2. 我们使用来自南非卡鲁地区的一项实地研究的63种物种的模拟和鸟类数据，明确比较了在不同调查重复水平下以及对于具有不同占有率和检测率的物种在DND和TTD模型之间的占有率，检测率和物种丰富度的估计。特征。
3. 模拟显示，对于不显眼的物种，单调查TTD模型的表现与重复数量更高的DND模型一样好，或等同。在广泛的物种中这种作用减弱了。在低重复调查的情况下，TTD模型的优势更为明显，随着重复调查数量的增加，两种方法的性能迅速收敛。但是，实地数据的结果表明，单次TTD调查不足以可靠地估算占用率，检测率和物种丰富度。特别是在稀有和不显眼的物种中。将TTD调查数量增加到两个重复可以大大改善模型。
4. 我们的结果表明，TTD调查的一般用途取决于研究中所考虑物种的特征。在某些研究设计中，单个TTD调查可能就足够了，但在大多数多物种实地场景中，由社区组成的物种具有广泛的检测和占用概率，这可能就不够。然而，TTD调查确实提供了好处，因为数据可用于构建检测曲线，可用于指导未来研究设计中的调查工作。