[Odonata-l] odonate inventory/habitat association samplingtechniques

[Kevin Hannah]

Many thanks for the prompt and highly informative responses thus far.  To provide some additional clarification:
   
  - I do have considerable experience catching and identifying odonates, so I'm not too worried about that.  As suggested, I do plan to keep representative specimens, especially if identification cannot be confirmed in the field.
   
  - I will be working in northern Manitoba and northern Saskatchewan (north of 56 degrees latitude in each case).  I may also be in portions of southern NWT, but that is less likely.
   
  - at this point, I'm not going to be too ambitious with this project.  Ultimately, I'm most interested in quantifying basic patterns of odonate diversity and abundance, along with attempting to ascribe some general habitat associations.
   
  Again, I do have extensive experience in sampling other biota, largely birds, and am very familiar with standard techniques and sampling designs for them.  What I was specifically interested in knowing, was how best to standardize effort (i.e. timed counts as with birds).  Many have suggested strip transects as a sampling method, but is this timed, and how opportunistically do you sample flying versus perched odes?  Again, if I'm trying to make some general comparisons (e.g. temporal or spatial differences in abundance or diversity), I need to minimize bias in sampling effort.  I guess I'm still struggling with exactly how to do this with odes, as they don't vocalize and can't always be readily identified (as with birds), so effort is harder to standardize.
   
  Any further suggestions along these lines would be greatly appreciated!
   
  Thanks again,
   
  Kevin Hannah  

		
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