Assessing the impact of large-scale farmland abandonment on the habitat distributions of frog species after the Fukushima nuclear accident

Matsushima, Noe; Ihara, Sadao; Inaba, Osamu; Horiguchi, T.

doi:10.1007/s00442-021-04991-y

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The direct effects of radiation exposure from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident on wildlife populations and ecosystems are not large enough to be observable at the population level (UNSCEARE 2017). However, the evacuation orders in response to the nuclear accident have resulted in short-term changes in land use and human activities (Tamaoki, 2016;Yoshioka et al, 2015), and these changes may have important impacts on wildlife populations and ecosystems (Fujimoto, Mitsunaga, & Takeuchi, 2015;Lyons, Okuda, Hamilton, Hinton, & Beasley, 2020;Matsushima, Ihara, Inaba, & Horiguchi, 2021;Yoshioka et al, 2015). The strong negative impact of the evacuation order on heron and egret populations can be attributed to the decrease in food availability due to the widespread abandonment of farmlands.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distance sampling with vehicle-mounted cameras for the estimation of farmland bird abundance over a wide area

Kumada

Fukasawa

Yoshioka

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Agricultural birds are declining due to farmland abandonment and agricultural intensification, and monitoring approaches, including efficient survey methods, are crucial for the development of effective conservation strategies. Roadside surveys (RS), especially those using vehicle-mounted video cameras, can be used to efficiently search for targets; however, they are limited by the unknown detection range. Distance sampling (DS), in which animal density or abundance is estimated from the distance between the observer and the detected individual, can provide a complimentary approach to address this limitation of RS. We developed a DS model robust to location uncertainty based on video-based RS. We integrated location errors determined by an independent field test using RS and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into a stochastic DS model. We estimated the abundance of herons and egrets in farmlands in and around the evacuation zone of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident by combining RS and DS. The video-based RS covered 7,031 km of roads and 24.41 km2 of farmlands. All herons and egrets were observed around the evacuation zone and none were detected in the zone. The predicted abundance of herons and egrets differed substantially between areas inside (0.0158 ± 0.0174/km2) and outside of the zone (4.62 ± 5.41/km2). Integrating location uncertainty into the DS model did not affect predicted heron and egret population densities (4.62 ± 5.41 vs. 4.66 ± 5.45/km2, with or without integrating location uncertainty, respectively). Accordingly, our survey method combining RS and DS is robust to location uncertainty. The study system (i.e., herons and egrets in farmlands) and the inability of location error to exceed the size of one farmland separated by levees may contribute to the accuracy of RS in this study. Synthesis and Applications: Combining RS with vehicle-mounted cameras and DS considering location uncertainty is widely applicable to open land species and can improve the efficiency of monitoring. When large location errors are expected by conventional approaches, DS models incorporating location uncertainty determined by RS and UAVs could be effective for abundance estimation over wide areas.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%