To understand and manage any ecosystem, one of the most critical indicators is census population size (‘’) for each component species. This is why the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) stipulates that it is ideal to know census size to an accuracy of ±10 % for each managed, endangered or exploited population. Knowledge of population size is also critical for: ecological studies in general; allowing biodiversity measures with low error margins; and assessing potential for evolutionary adaptation in long-term management. Unfortunately, despite their importance, all existing methods for estimating have many difficulties, especially requiring independent knowledge or assumptions about demography, including: immigration, emigration, family size and its variance. As a result, even in the IUCN red list, many species are listed despite having unknown population size or trends. Therefore, we need an improved approach. This article introduces ‘DnaDot’, a strong new addition to our armory of census population size estimates, because it is an accurate estimate, with few assumptions. DnaDot is based on mark-release-recapture, but instead of marking, uses pre-existing polymorphisms to divide the population into separate groups. The method uses one sample, minimizing effort, uses no demographic assumptions or data, and does not require genotyping to be accurate enough to identify individuals and kin, which is problematic for other genetic methods especially when degraded field samples are used. DnaDot applies to any kind of variants, from tissue samples, or from noninvasive samples such as hair provided that the researcher can identify species-identity and variants within the species. DnaDot outperformed close competitors on minimal assumptions, and good detectability of marks. Also, in simulations of a wide range of scenarios, DnaDot had superior accuracy and precision, usually meeting the IUCN criterion of ±10 %, which competing methods rarely achieved. Finally, one other method is said to need smaller sample sizes than DnaDot, but only if that method is not required to meet the performance criteria of DnaDot.

中文翻译：

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DnaDot - 修复生态学和进化的盲点、人口规模

要了解和管理任何生态系统，最关键的指标之一是每个组成物种的普查种群规模 ('')。这就是为什么国际自然保护联盟 (IUCN) 规定，理想的情况是了解每个受管理、濒危或开发种群的人口普查规模，准确度为 ±10%。了解人口规模对于以下方面也至关重要： 一般生态研究；允许采取低误差范围的生物多样性措施；并评估长期管理中进化适应的潜力。不幸的是，尽管它们很重要，但所有现有的估计方法都存在许多困难，特别是需要有关人口学的独立知识或假设，包括：移民、移民、家庭规模及其方差。因此，即使在世界自然保护联盟红色名录中，许多物种尽管种群规模或趋势未知，但仍被列入名单。因此，我们需要一种改进的方法。本文介绍了“DnaDot”，这是我们人口普查人口规模估计库中的一个强大的新成员，因为它是一个准确的估计，几乎没有任何假设。 DnaDot 基于标记-释放-重新捕获，但不是标记，而是使用预先存在的多态性将群体划分为不同的组。该方法使用一个样本，最大限度地减少工作量，不使用人口统计假设或数据，并且不需要足够准确的基因分型来识别个体和亲属，这对于其他遗传方法来说是有问题的，特别是当使用退化的现场样本时。 DnaDot 适用于任何类型的变异，无论是组织样本还是头发等非侵入性样本，前提是研究人员能够识别物种内的物种身份和变异。 DnaDot 在最少的假设和良好的标记可检测性方面优于实力强劲的竞争对手。此外，在各种场景的模拟中，DnaDot 具有卓越的准确度和精密度，通常满足 IUCN 标准的 ±10%，这是其他竞争方法很少能达到的。最后，据说另一种方法需要比 DnaDot 更小的样本量，但前提是该方法不需要满足 DnaDot 的性能标准。