Using Probabilistic Approach to Evaluate the Total Population Density on Coarse Grids

Abstract

Evaluation of the population density in many ecological and biological problems requires a satisfactory degree of accuracy. Insufficient information about the population density, obtained from sampling procedures negatively, impacts on the accuracy of the estimate. When dealing with sparse ecological data, the asymptotic error estimate fails to achieve a reliable degree of accuracy. It is essential to investigate which factors affect the degree of accuracy of numerical integration methods. When the number of traps is less than the recommended threshold, the degree of accuracy will be negatively affected. Therefore, available numerical integration methods cannot guarantee a satisfactory degree of accuracy, and in this sense the error will be probabilistic rather than deterministic. In other words, the probabilistic approach is used instead of the deterministic approach in this instance; by considering the error as a random variable, the chance of obtaining an accurate estimation can be quantified. In the probabilistic approach, we determine a threshold number of grid nodes required to guarantee a desirable level of accuracy with the probability equal to one.