Ratification of the protocols of the STOC-EPS survey in French Guiana

The Life+ Cap DOM project to set up a STOC-EPS point-count study in French Guiana incorporates a protocol ratification process after a trial period has been completed. This trial period ended in 2004, a year and a half after the first data were collected. Some 6000 records have been analysed by the MNHN, and in June 2014 Diane Gonzalez, design scientist at MNHN, came to French Guiana to report to GEPOG the results of her analyses. These were such as to validate the protocol being used, along with some recommendations for the future (notably tightening up on the timescales and seasons during which the data is gathered).

This ratification is important as it shows that the protocol being used in an empirical way was valid overall; the records gathered over the test period were therefore credible and can be integrated into the rest of the STOC data and thus be used in long-term analyses of the changes in individual species. The effort put in by the observers over two years was therefore not in vain! Thanks to their work, initial analyses concerning the fifteen commonest species should be available in the near future.

This official ratification of the protocol closes the first phase of this Life+ Cap DOM project and so now the STOC-EPS programme can get under way in earnest in French Guiana!

The Rusty-margined Flycatcher is one of the common species whose data will be analysed shortly © M. Giraud-Audine