Duration
9h Th, 9h 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
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
The course has 3distinct parts :
- Presentation of the main techniques of wildlife surveys and data acquisition for the description of animals home range.
- Introduction to telemetry techniques.
- Introduction to camera trapping
These techniques 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.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
Basic knowledge of GIS, of Excel software and of sampling theory.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Lectures and seminars : 8 hours Pratical exercises : 10 hours
Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)
Face-to-face
Tutorials
Organisational adjustments related to the current health context
The theoretical material is made available in the form of video capsules.
Practical exercises are made available to students in the form of written notes and videos.
The classroom sessions are held in a computer room with sufficient capacity. Participation in these sessions is not mandatory.
These sessions are mainly intended to answer questions asked by students for the theoretical part and to help with the practical exercises and the finalization of the project which will be carried out by groups of 2 students.
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
Below you will find information on the evaluation methods planned for in-person and remote exams as well as those planned for hybrid sessions. Depending on how the health crisis evolves, the chosen method will be communicated to you no later than one month before the start of the exam session.
Open book examniation
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