Distance-sampling (<doi:10.1007/978-3-319-19219-2>) is a field survey and analytical method that estimates density and abundance of survey targets (e.g., animals) when detection probability declines with observation distance. Distance-sampling is popular in ecology, especially when survey targets are observed from aerial platforms (e.g., airplane or drone), surface vessels (e.g., boat or truck), or along walking transects. Analysis involves fitting smooth (parametric) curves to histograms of observation distances and using those functions to adjust density estimates for missed targets. Routines included here fit curves to observation distance histograms, estimate effective sampling area, density of targets in surveyed areas, and the abundance of targets in a surrounding study area. Confidence interval estimation uses built-in bootstrap resampling. Help files are extensive and have been vetted by multiple authors. Many tutorials are available on the package's website (URL below).
| Version: | 4.1.1 |
| Depends: | R (≥ 4.1.0), units |
| Imports: | graphics, stats, utils, crayon, withr, tidyr, dplyr, progress, tibble, tidyselect, dfoptim, expint |
| Suggests: | testthat (≥ 3.0.0) |
| Published: | 2025-12-03 |
| DOI: | 10.32614/CRAN.package.Rdistance |
| Author: | Trent McDonald [cre, aut], Jason Carlisle [aut], Aidan McDonald [aut] (point transect methods), Ryan Nielson [ctb] (smoothed likelihood), Ben Augustine [ctb] (maximization method), James Griswald [ctb] (maximization method), Patrick McKann [ctb] (maximization method), Lacey Jeroue [ctb] (vignettes), Hoffman Abigail [ctb] (vignettes), Kleinsausser Michael [ctb] (vignettes), Joel Reynolds [ctb] (Gamma likelihood), Pham Quang [ctb] (Gamma likelihood), Earl Becker [ctb] (Gamma likelihood), Aaron Christ [ctb] (Gamma likelihood), Brook Russelland [ctb] (Gamma likelihood), Stefan Emmons [ctb] (Automated tests), Will McDonald [ctb] (Automated tests), Reid Olson [ctb] (Automated tests and bug fixes) |
| Maintainer: | Trent McDonald <trent at mcdonalddatasciences.com> |
| BugReports: | https://github.com/tmcd82070/Rdistance/issues |
| License: | GPL-2 | GPL-3 [expanded from: GNU General Public License] |
| URL: | https://mcdonalddata.science/Rdistance.html |
| NeedsCompilation: | no |
| Materials: | NEWS |
| CRAN checks: | Rdistance results |
| Reference manual: | Rdistance.html , Rdistance.pdf |
| Package source: | Rdistance_4.1.1.tar.gz |
| Windows binaries: | r-devel: Rdistance_4.0.5.zip, r-release: Rdistance_4.0.5.zip, r-oldrel: Rdistance_4.1.1.zip |
| macOS binaries: | r-release (arm64): Rdistance_4.1.1.tgz, r-oldrel (arm64): Rdistance_4.1.1.tgz, r-release (x86_64): Rdistance_4.1.1.tgz, r-oldrel (x86_64): Rdistance_4.1.1.tgz |
| Old sources: | Rdistance archive |
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