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Improving Prairie Pond Counts with Aerial Video
and Global Positioning Systems

Results: Comparison of Pond Counts

The average number of ponds detected by video interpretation (mean = 97.4, SE = 17.0) and ground BGS (mean = 98.9, SE = 20.0) did not differ when comparing the total number of ponds (includes Type I wetlands) on both sides of the 12 air-ground transects (t = 0.229, P = 0.823) or when comparing number of ponds (excludes Type I wetlands) on the 1 side of the 12 air-ground transects counted in aerial BGS (video [mean = 47.0, SE = 8.7], ground BGS [mean = 44.6, SE = 10.1], t = 0.988, P = 0.344). The average number of ponds counted in aerial BGS (mean = 38.4, SE = 8.2) and ground BGS were different on the 1 side of the 12 air-ground transects counted in aerial BGS (t = 2.15, P = 0.054). Ground BGS counted more ponds than aerial BGS. The number of ponds from the video interpretation and aerial BGS were different when comparing ponds on 1 side of the 12 air-ground transects counted in aerial BGS (t = 2.91, P = 0.014), and when comparing pond counts on 1 side of the 30 29-km transect segments (video [mean = 46.6, SE = 6.8], aerial BGS [mean = 38.9, SE = 6.5], t = 2.30, P = 0.029). Video interpretation resulted in more ponds than aerial BGS for both datasets.
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