Assessing the utility of autonomous recording units and spring point counts for monitoring abundance of ruffed grouse Bonasa umbellus

The ruffed grouse Bonasa umbellus is a species of conservation concern that has declined across most of its range. At the southeastern trailing edge of the range in Georgia, grouse are restricted to elevations 600 m a.s.l. and abundance is relatively low. Monitoring fragmented, low‐density populations is inherently difficult, and traditional spring point counts suffer from low precision of abundance estimates. We performed a simulation study to assess the efficacy of non‐invasive autonomous recording units (ARUs) to improve grouse monitoring efforts across a range of population densities and survey conditions. We parameterized simulations based on previous grouse monitoring data from north Georgia, with simulations varying in terms of the point‐count effort, grouse density, and utilization of ARUs. Model convergence rates and the accuracy and precision of population abundance estimates increased across monitoring scenarios by integrating ARUs with point counts, especially in cases of low‐density and low survey effort when point counts alone generated insufficient detections to model abundance and seasonal availability. Our results show that integrating ARUs and traditional point counts can be a cost‐effective method to improve abundance monitoring in Georgia, and likely across the range.