Long-term monitoring of primate, bird, and ungulate populations 2010-2022 for protected area management, Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, Cambodia

Cain  Agger1, Olly Griffin1, Matt Nuttall2, Hannah O'Kelly2, Cain Agger1

1 WCS Cambodia, ; 2 

Corresponding author(s): Cain  AggerOlly GriffinMatt NuttallHannah O'Kelly

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

Agger C, Griffin O, Nuttall M, O'Kelly H (2022): Long-term monitoring of primate, bird, and ungulate populations 2010-2022 for protected area management, Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, Cambodia. v1.8. WCS Cambodia. Dataset/Samplingevent. https://ipt.gbif.fr/resource?r=wcs_ksws_transect&v=1.8

Abstract

Observations of 13 key species over 12 years in Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, Cambodia, recorded during standardized line transect surveys. Distance sampling and density surface models are used to analyze this data and produce population estimates. 

Keywords: Occurrence, distance sampling, density surface model, Cambodia, population trends, abundance estimates, Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, yellow-cheeked crested gibbon, black-shanked douc, Samplingevent

General description

Purpose: Data are collected in order to estimate wildlife populations and distributions, used to inform protected area management.

Project details

Project title: Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary
Personnel: Olly Griffin, Cain Agger, Matt Nuttall, Hannah  O'Kelly
Funding: United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Agence Française de Développement (AFD), US Fish and Wildlife Service, GEF-5 (CAMPAS),  Royal Government of Cambodia Keo Seima REDD+ (KSWS REDD+)
Study area descriptions/descriptor: Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary (12.3346, 106.8418, formerly Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area and Seima Protection Forest) falls within Mondulkiri and Kratie provinces in eastern Cambodia, shares its southeastern edge with Vietnam, and has an area of 2,927 km2 (Fig. 1). The  study area is the former core zone, an area of 1,880 km2 (Fig. 1). KSWS is characterized by a diverse mosaic of habitats; the southeastern area extends into the Southern Annamite Mountain Range with higher altitudinal mountainous topography, and dense evergreen and semi-evergreen forest (Evans et al. 2013). The central and western areas form the edge of the Eastern Plains Landscape, which is dominated by low altitudes and dry deciduous dipterocarp forests (O’Kelly et al. 2012; Evans et al. 2013). Complementing the altitudinal and habitat gradients are semi-natural grasslands and seasonal and permanent water bodies that together support rich biodiversity (Nuttall et al. 2017) .
Design description: Data were collected jointly by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Forestry Administration of the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) between 2010 and 2016, and by WCS and the Ministry of Environment of the RGC in 2018 to 2022. Square line transects of 4 km length were arranged throughout KSWS in a systematic grid with a random start point, and field teams conducted distance sampling surveys along the 40  line transects in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020. Field teams recorded visual observations of 11 species that were listed as threatened on the IUCN Red List, or were easily detected on line transects, or both (see Table 1 for species and name abbreviations). Laser rangefinders and compasses were used to measure distances and angles from the line transect to detected objects, which constituted either isolated individuals or spatially aggregated individuals (clusters), and cluster sizes were recorded. Distances were measured to the geometric center of clusters. Perpendicular distances from detected objects to the line transect were calculated prior to analysis. Field protocols followed standard line transect methodology outlined in Buckland et al. (2001) and were consistent between years. For further details of field protocols  see Supporting Information, O’Kelly et al. (2012), and Nuttall et al. (2017).

Data published through GBIF: https://ipt.gbif.fr/resource?r=wcs_ksws_transect

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: Black-shanked douc (Pygathrix nigripes), southern yellow-cheeked crested gibbon (Nomascus gabriellae), Germain's silver langur (Trachypithecus germaini), long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis), northern pig-tailed macaque (Macaca leonina), stump-tailed macaque (Macaca arctoides), green peafowl (Pavo muticus), wild pig (Sus scrofa), northern red muntjac (Muntiacus vaginalis), banteng (Bos javanicus), gaur (Bos gaurus), Eld's deer (Rucervus eldii), sambar (Rusa unicolor).

Records for banteng, gaur, Eld's deer, and sambar are not published here due to risk of poaching, but are available on request where appropriate.
Taxonomic ranks
Species: Sus scrofa, Muntiacus vaginalis, Pygathrix nigripes, Pavo muticus, Trachypithecus germaini, Macaca leonina, Nomascus gabriellae, Macaca fascicularis, Rusa unicolor, Macaca arctoides, Rucervus eldii, Bos gaurus, Bos javanicus
Common names: Wild pig, Northern red muntjac, Black-shanked douc, Green peafowl, Germain's silver langur, Northern pig-tailed macaque, Southern yellow-cheeked crested gibbon, Long-tailed macaque, Sambar, Stump-tailed macaque, Eld's deer, Gaur, Banteng

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: Observations of species within the central area of Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, Cambodia.
Coordinates: 12°3'21.6''N and 12°36'43.2''N Latitude; 106°24'25.2''E and 107°17'56.4''E Longitude 

Temporal coverage: 2010 - 2022

Methods

Method step description: Anon during peer-review
Study extent description: The study area is the former core zone, an area of 1,880 km2.
Sampling description: Data were collected jointly by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Forestry Administration of the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) between 2010 and 2016, and by WCS and the Ministry of Environment of the RGC in 2018 and 2020. Square line transects of 4 km length were arranged throughout KSWS in a systematic grid with a random start point, and field teams conducted distance sampling surveys along the 40  line transects in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020. Field teams recorded visual observations of 11 species that were listed as threatened on the IUCN Red List, or were easily detected on line transects, or both (see Table 1 for species and name abbreviations). Laser rangefinders and compasses were used to measure distances and angles from the line transect to detected objects, which constituted either isolated individuals or spatially aggregated individuals (clusters), and cluster sizes were recorded. Distances were measured to the geometric center of clusters. Perpendicular distances from detected objects to the line transect were calculated prior to analysis. Field protocols followed standard line transect methodology outlined in Buckland et al. (2001) and were consistent between years. For further details of field protocols  see Supporting Information, O’Kelly et al. (2012), and Nuttall et al. (2017).
Quality control description: Square line transects can potentially cause detection bias around the corners, as animals on the inner side of the corner could be detected twice. Although double-counting does not in itself violate distance-sampling assumptions, bias may arise if the two sightings are non-independent, for example if the second sighting occurs because animals are still present at the location of the first sighting. To assess whether there was evidence of corner-bias in our data, we tested for differences in density of observations between corner areas and non-corner areas. The corner samples were obtained from all transect sections within 50 m of a corner, and the non-corner samples were obtained by two methods: firstly as all transect sections not within 50 m of a corner; and secondly by using 50 m transect sections around each of 1000 randomly-selected points, discarding any that overlapped with corner areas. For either method, observation density was calculated for the corner and non-corner samples and compared using a t-test. Neither method resulted in a significant difference in observation density between corner areas and non-corner areas, so no further action was taken to address corner effects.

For 2010 and 2011 data, the time was not collected for observations, so linking observations to morning or evening events was not possible. Instead, the two events on a single date (morning and evening) were grouped, giving a higher total effort, and all observations for that date were assigned to the single event. This makes not difference to distance sampling analysis, but is noted to explain the apparent higher effort per event from those years. In fact, daily effort is generally equal across all years, but subdivided from 2013 onwards.

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Long-term monitoring of primate, bird, and ungulate populations 2010-2022 for protected area management, Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, Cambodia
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: https://ipt.gbif.fr/archive.do?r=wcs_ksws_transect
Publication date of data: 2022-09-20
Language: English
Licences of use: Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2021-03-17
Hierarchy level: Dataset