Monitoring within an adaptive management framework provides important insights about system responses to management and information on which management actions to adjust to improve outcomes over time. We evaluated the range‐wide monitoring survey of the New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) and assessed its ability to track changes in species’ population status over time using data gathered under the original protocol in 2016–2017 from 204 sites in 5 states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York, USA). We used occupancy analysis and structured decision making to evaluate 2 questions: 1) Does the monitoring survey provide the information needed to meet monitoring goals? and 2) What changes in the monitoring protocol, survey‐site selection, or field‐data collection are needed to better meet monitoring goals? A power analysis applied to data from the 2016–2017 survey indicated insufficient power (<0.80) to detect a large (0.50) change in occupancy, and either increasing the number of sites sampled, the number of occupied sites sampled, or both actions were needed to increase power and enable range‐wide survey objectives to be met. A revised study design was implemented in 2017–2018 that included sampling 146 of about 210 known occupied sites in 6 states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island, USA) and provided sufficient power (0.81) to detect a small (0.30) change in occupancy. The revised study design revealed a 50% decline in the number of known occupied sites has occurred over the last decade. Our findings highlight the importance of study‐design considerations in monitoring protocols and the important role of structured decision‐making in making transparent, data‐informed, and defendable decisions when developing, evaluating, and revising monitoring plans for cryptic and rare species such as the New England cottontail. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

中文翻译：

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新英格兰棉尾虫全程监测的替代采样设计评估

自适应管理框架内的监视可提供有关系统对管理的响应的重要见解，以及有关需要调整哪些管理措施以随着时间推移改善结果的信息。我们评估了新英格兰棉尾（Sylvilagus transitionalis）的全范围监测调查），并使用原始协议根据2016-2017年从5个州（康涅狄格州，缅因州，马萨诸塞州，新罕布什尔州和美国纽约）的204个站点收集的原始数据，评估了其跟踪物种种群状况随时间变化的能力。我们使用占用率分析和结构化决策来评估2个问题：1）监控调查是否提供实现监控目标所需的信息？2）为了更好地实现监测目标，需要对监测协议，调查地点选择或现场数据收集进行哪些更改？对2016-2017年调查数据进行的功率分析表明，功率不足（<0.80）不足以检测到占用率发生较大（0.50）变化，并且要么增加采样点的数量，要么增加采样点的数量，或需要同时采取两项行动来提高能力并实现范围广泛的调查目标。2017-2018年实施了修订后的研究设计，包括在6个州（康涅狄格州，缅因州，马萨诸塞州，新罕布什尔州，纽约和美国罗德岛州）的约210个已知被占领站点中采样了146个，并提供了足够的功率（0.81）检测到较小的（0.30）占用率变化。修改后的研究设计表明，在过去十年中，已知占用地点的数量下降了50％。我们的发现凸显了研究设计注意事项在监测方案中的重要性，以及结构性决策在制定，评估和修订诸如此类的隐性和稀有物种的监测计划时做出透明，数据知情和可辩护的决策的重要作用。新英格兰棉尾。