James P. Gibbs, State University of New York, College of Environmental
Science and Forestry, 350 Illick Hall, Syracuse, NY 13210
Scott M. Melvin, Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife,
Field Headquarters, Westborough, Massachusetts 01581
In developing regional monitoring programs, biologists should retain a focus on the major challenge that we face: to devise sampling methods that permit unbiased and statistically powerful surveys of marshbird populations in a logistically feasible manner. Clear articulation of monitoring objectives (time frame, trend strength sought for detection, alpha, and beta) is the first step in this process. Based on a decade of experience with marshbird monitoring in Maine and Massachusetts, we highlight several considerations for the effective design of regional marshbird monitoring programs. These include whether call-response surveys adequately "index" marshbird abundance, use of waterbird mini-routes' as the unit for sampling marshbird populations, and tools for estimating the trade-offs between survey effort and power to detect trends in marshbird populations.