Seabirds At-Sea Surveys: The Line-Transect Method Outperforms the Point-Transect Alternative

Abstract

Methods: We tested whether modeling of detection probabilities, and density estimates with their coefficients of variation obtained from the point-transect method provided more robust and precise results than the more commonly used line-transect method. We subdivided our data by species groups (alcids, and aerialist species), and into two behavior categories (flying vs. swimming). We also computed density estimates from the strip-transect and point count methods, to relate differences between transect methods to their counterparts that do not consider a decreasing probability of detection with distance from the observer. We used data collected in the Gulf of St. Lawrence between 2009 and 2010 when observers simultaneously conducted lineand point-transect sampling.