sampling

Land managers in the southeastern United States cultivate rice (Oryza sativa) to provide calorie-dense forage for autumn-migrating and wintering waterfowl and other migratory birds. Conservation planners require accurate yield estimates for rice and other energy-rich croplands to parameterize bioenergetic models and support data-driven, adaptive resource management efforts. We developed a rapid method to efficiently estimate rice yield and quantified associated precision, accuracy, sampling time, and operating costs in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (n = 16 fields). We...

Published reports indicate night electrofishing may be superior to day sampling to estimate density and diversity of collected shes in some aquatic habitats. However, because shallow, highly turbid waters characteristic of river floodplains present fish detection, navigation, and safety concerns during night electrofishing, many southeastern floodplain sampling programs have focused on day electrofishing. We used paired day and night samples of shes collected by transect (200 m distance for eight minutes) and point electro fishing (1 minute at four points spaced 25 m apart) to assess...