Consistent estimation of species abundance from a presence-absence map

The estimation of the abundance of a species using the presence or absence of the species over a grid of cells simplifies data collection but the resulting statistical analysis is challenging. Several estimators have been proposed but their properties are unknown. Here we consider a generalized gamma-Poisson model which allows dependencies across the grid and develop a new estimator for this model. It is shown that this estimator is consistent, allowing us to conclude that it is indeed possible to estimate abundance from presence-absence maps.