Editing Transect (section)

{{short description|Path along which the observer counts and records occurrences of the subjects of the survey}}
{{For|the urban planning approach|Transect (urban)}}
[[File:Ed Williams measuring a transect (9664326339).jpg|thumb|A transect running across a stream.]]
A '''transect''' is a path along which one counts and records occurrences of the objects of study (e.g. plants).{{cn|date=November 2019}}

It requires an observer to move along a fixed path and to count occurrences along the path and, at the same time (in some procedures), obtain the distance of the object from the path. This results in an estimate of the area covered and an estimate of the way in which detectability increases from probability 0 (far from the path) towards 1 (near the path). Using the raw count and this probability function, one can arrive at an estimate of the actual density of objects.[[File:Transects of fire boundary above Backhouse Tarn.jpg|thumb|Transects being used to measure the changes around the boundary of a grassland fire near Backhouse Tarn, Tasmania.]]
The estimation of the abundance of populations (such as terrestrial mammal species) can be achieved using a number of different types of transect methods, such as strip transects, [[Line-intercept sampling|line transects]], [[belt transect]]s, [[point transect]]s<ref>Buckland, S. T.; Anderson, D. R.; Burnham, K. P.; Laake, J. L. 1993. [http://www.colostate.edu/Dept/coopunit/download.html ''Distance Sampling: Estimating Abundance of Biological Populations'']. London: Chapman and Hall. {{ISBN|0-412-42660-9}}</ref>{{page needed|date=April 2016}}, [[Gradsect|gradsects]] and curved line transects.<ref>Line Lex Hiby, M. B. Krishna 2001. "Transect Sampling from a Curving Path". ''Biometrics''. 57(3):727–731 [http://www.creem.st-and.ac.uk/tiago/webpages/pdfs/Hiby&Krishna2001.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930121723/http://www.creem.st-and.ac.uk/tiago/webpages/pdfs/Hiby%26Krishna2001.pdf|date=2007-09-30}}</ref>