A GIS tool to assist in the planning and design of sample surveys of the abundance of colonial breeding species

A GIS tool to assist in the planning and designing of surveys of colonial breeding species is described. The tool could be applied to any region of Antarctica given available colony map and count data. The tool currently implements only very simple survey designs, but could be further developed to implement more complex and efficient designs. An example of its potential use is provided. In the example the tool is used to sample a population of Adelie penguins in the Holme Bay region of East Antarctica as might occur in a real a pilot survey, and the resulting sample densities used to predict the number of sampling units required to estimate abundance for the entire region with a pre-determined precision.