Definition of the problem of estimating fish abundance over an area from acoustic line-transect measurements of density

摘要

The problem of acoustic abundance estimation is briefly reviewed. Under proper conditions, fishdensity can be measured with high accuracy along line transects. Observed variations in fish densityconsequently reflect biological variations, or inhomogeneity in spatial distribution. The particularproblem of estimating fish abundance over an area from line-transect measurements of fish density isdefined. Related problems of estimating the variance of the abundance estimate and of mapping thespatial distribution are also defined. A partial list of candidate methods for solving the severalproblems is given. Among these, the so-called spatial statistical techniques appear to be mostpromising because of their exploitation of the observed spatial structure.