Two-stage adaptive cluster sampling

Adaptive cluster sampling is usually applied when estimating the abundance of elusive, clustered biological populations. It is commonly supposed that all individuals in the selected area units are detected by the observer, but in many actual situations this assumption may be highly unrealistic and some individuals may be missed. This paper deals with the problem of handling imperfect detectability in adaptive cluster sampling by using a pure design-based approach. A two-stage adaptive procedure is proposed where the abundance in the selected units is estimated by replicated counts. © Springer-Verlag 2005.