How many birds are out there?

In a recent paper entitled “Lessons learned from comparing spatially explicit models and the Partners in Flight approach to estimate population sizes of boreal birds in Alberta, Canada” we developed improved, spatially explicit models for 81 land bird species in northern Alberta, Canada. We then compared these estimates of bird abundance to a commonly-used but non-spatially explicit estimate by Partners in Flight (PIF v 3.0) that’s based on the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) data set. The publication is a result of years of collaboration between the ABMI, Boreal Avian Modelling (BAM) project, Canadian Wildlife Service (Environment and Climate Change Canada), and United States Geological Survey.

Fitting removal models with the detect R package

In a paper recently published in the Condor, titled Evaluating time-removal models for estimating availability of boreal birds during point-count surveys: sample size requirements and model complexity, we assessed different ways of controlling for point-count duration in bird counts using data from the Boreal Avian Modelling Project. As the title indicates, the paper describes a cost-benefit analysis to make recommendations about when to use different types of the removal model. The paper is open access, so feel free to read the whole paper here.

Shiny slider examples with the intrval R package

The intrval R package is lightweight (~11K), standalone (apart from importing from graphics, has exactly 0 non-base dependency), and it has a very narrow scope: it implements relational operators for intervals — very well aligned with the tiny manifesto. In this post we will explore the use of the package in two shiny apps with sliders.

R packages

Publications

Gonzalez, A., O'Connor, M. I., Bates, A. E., Bobiwash, K., Burton, A. C., van Dam-Bates, P., Eckert, I., Gravel, D., Idrobo, C. J., Pollock, L., Simon, A. D. F., Slein, M. A., Sólymos, P., Starzomski, B. M., Sunday, J., Tekwa, E., 2025. A Biodiversity Observation Network to support conservation action and mainstream knowledge in Canada. FACETS, 10: 1–9. —  fulltext PDF.

Stralberg, D., Sólymos, P., Docherty, T. D. S., Crosby, A. D., Van Wilgenburg, S. L., Knight, E. C., Drake, A., Boehm, M. M. A., Haché, S., Leston, L., Toms, J. D., Ball, J. R., Song, S. J., Schmiegelow, F. K. A., Cumming, S. C., Bayne, E. M., 2025. A generalized modeling framework for spatially extensive species abundance prediction and population estimation. Ecosphere, xx: xx–xx. —  GitHub repository.

Leston, L., Dénes, F. V., Docherty, T. D. S., Tremblay, J. A., Boulanger, Y., Van Wilgenburg, S. L., Stralberg, D., Sólymos, P., Haché, S., St Laurent, K., Weeber, R., Drolet, B., Westwood, A. R., Hope, D. P., Ball, J., Song, S. J., Cumming, S. G., Bayne, E., Schmiegelow, F. K. A., 2024. A framework to support the identification of critical habitat for wide-ranging species at risk under climate change. Biodiversity and Conservation, 33: 603–628. —  journal website —  fulltext PDF.

Sólymos, P., 2023. Agent-based simulations improve abundance estimation. Biologia Futura, 74: 377–392. —  journal website —  fulltext PDF —  bSims R package.

Edwards, B. P. M., Smith, A. C., Docherty, T. D. S., Gahbauer, M. A., Gillespie, C. R., Grinde, A. R., Harmer, T., Iles, D. T., Matsuoka, S. M., Michel, N. L., Murray, A., Niemi, G. J., Pasher, J., Pavlacky Jr, D. C., Robinson, B. G., Ryder, T. B., Sólymos, P., Stralberg, D., and Zlonis, E. J., 2023. Point count offsets for estimating population sizes of North American landbirds. Ibis, 165: 482–503. —  journal website —  NA-POPS GitHub organization.