Duration
12h Th, 12h Pr
Number of credits
| Master in forests and natural areas engineering (120 ECTS) | 2 crédits |
Lecturer
Language(s) of instruction
French language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the first semester, review in January
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
The course has two distinct parts : - Presentation of the main techniques of wildlife surveys and data acquisition for the description of animals home range; - Introduction to habitat characterization and habitat suitability modeling. These two aspects are discussed with particular emphasis on the large mammalian species living in savannah.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
At the end of the course, students should be able to:
- Understand the basic principles used in wildlife surveys techniques;
- Process data set coming from wildlife surveys (aerial counts, pedestrians surveys, abundance indices);
- Analyze georeferenced wildlife observations to characterize their home range;
- Build a spatial distribution model in the case of animal species and discuss its results.
- Use a monitoring and reporting system dedicated to the management of protected area (SMART software)
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
Basic knowledge of GIS, of Excel software and of sampling theory.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Lectures : 8 hours Pratical exercises : 16 hours
Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)
Face-to-face
Tutorials and personal assignment
Recommended or required readings
References :
- Buckland S.T., Anderson D.R., Burnham K.P., Laake J.L. (1993). Distance sampling, estimating abundance of biological populations. London, Chapman & Hall, 446 p
- Elith, J., Phillips, S.J., Hastie, T., Dudík, M., Chee, Y.E. & Yates, C.J. 2011. A statistical explanation of MaxEn for ecologists. Diversity and Distributions, 17, 43-57.
- Hirzel, A. H., Hausser J., Chessel D. & Perrin N. 2002. Ecological- Niche Factor Analysis : How to Computer Habitat- Suitability Maps without Absence Data ? Ecology, 83(7), 2027-2036.
- Khül et al. (2008) Lignes directrices pour de meilleures pratiques en matière d'inventaire et de suivi des populations de grands singes. Document occasionnel de la Commission de sauvegarde des espèces de l'UICN, 40p.
- Northon-Griffiths, M. Counting Animals. African Wildlife Ecology Handbook Series, No. 1. 1978.
- Pearson, R.G. (2007). "Species' distribution modeling for conservation educators and practitioners". Synthesis. American Museum of Natural History. 2007 (1): 1-50.
- Schwarz C.J. and A.F. George (1999). Estimating Animal Abundance: Review III. Statistical Science, Vol. 14, No. 4, 427-456.
Assessment methods and criteria
Assignment report
Work placement(s)
Organizational remarks
The course material and the data sets are provided to the students through eCampus
Contacts
Philippe Lejeune
p.lejeune@ulg.ac.be
081/622296