Pilot data based on the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) range-wide lesser prairie-chicken survey (LEPC) 2015, supplemented with temporal replication of survey methods on a subset of survey units, were subjected to preliminary modeling the probability of occupancy at multi-scales. We estimated probability of LEPC occupancy at two spatial scales: presence of the LEPC on 15 km X 15 km grid cells and small-scale probability of occupancy on 7.5 km X 7.5 km quadrants nested within the grid cells. We compared the performance of the WAFWA range-wide survey with the performance of the WAFWA range-wide survey data when supplemented with data from repeated temporal replicates of the survey method. We conducted pilot analyses to evaluate the potential of the multi-scale occupancy model to predict the effects of habitat and conservation practices on LEPC occupancy. Preliminary results indicate that local conservation programs are positively related to LEPC occupancy in surveyed grid cells.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.