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Using A General Indexing Paradigm To Monitor Rodent Populations, Richard M. Engeman, Desley Whisson

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Population monitoring is a valuable component to managing invasive rodent populations. Indices can be efficient methods for monitoring rodent populations, as more labor-intensive density estimation procedures often are impractical or invalid to apply. Many monitoring objectives can be couched in an indexing framework. Indexing procedures obtain maximal utility if they exhibit key characteristics, including being practical to apply, being sensitive to population changes or differences in the target species, having an inherent variance formula to estimate precision of index values, and relying on as few assumptions as possible. Here, a general indexing paradigm that promotes the characteristics that make indices …