In answer to your question- not that I know of, at least directly.  You might check out this paper: Peterson, J. T. and C. P. Shea (2014). "AN EVALUATION OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN FLOW REGIME COMPONENTS, STREAM CHARACTERISTICS, SPECIES TRAITS, AND META-DEMOGRAPHIC RATES OF WARM-WATER-STREAM FISHES: IMPLICATIONS FOR AQUATIC RESOURCE MANAGEMENT." River Research and Applications: n/a-n/a.

I have a PhD student who is working to calibrate a model that will adjust efficiency for flow characteristics.  He will then examine community changes related to different flow regimes. Many of the flow alteration assessments have used historic biotic data for comparison which makes adjusting for efficiency difficult since it's unclear what the conditions were under the sampling regime.  Occupancy modeling is promising but the 'closed assumption' seems somewhat difficult to deal with, even if you are lucky enough to have multiple samples taken from the same 'season'. 

the before sampling did not address detection and we only addressed it after flow change

Article Accounting for variation in species detection in fish commun...

See my paper available on my page titled: "Estimating and predicting collection  probabilities of fish at dams using mulitstate modeling". I quantify fish passage flow-relationships while using a mark recapture framework. Also see my juvenile steelhead paper for fish flow relationships. Hope these help. 

Shannon and Donald: Thanks for the papers, these are exactly what I had in mind.

John: Your paper isn't evaluating an E-flow that I can tell but I think its great and represents a really creative way to estimate abundance of fish. I'll probably end up citing it for that reason!

Dan - I let you be the judge if this relates to imperfect detection. here's the article link:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/rra.2678

First MAXENT was used to evaluate site bias. MAXENT uses presence only (not absence) and compares to all stream reaches in the network (i.e. not using default terestrial rasters as the environment).

Second, validation of flow-ecology predictions used quantile regression to examine upper bounds of trout abundance response to flow/habitat. A zero or low abundance has less influence on the upper bound, reducing the influence of poor detection or otherwise unsuitable habitat.

I also revisited the trout habitat criteria because of the problems resulting from assuming absence represents avoidance. Again maxent used for presence only and various sampling strategies to account for bias in reach selection. That's only described in the dissertation appendix 3. You'll also find the above article as chapter 2.

 http://digitool.library.colostate.edu///exlibris/dtl/d3_1/apache_media/L2V4bGlicmlzL2R0bC9kM18xL2FwYWNoZV9tZWRpYS8xNzE2MzE=.pdf

regards,

Thomas

Here's a perspective Dan. Imperfect detection is really only an issue when detection efficiency drops appreciably below 1. If its 0.96 is does this diminish one's inferences? For example, we've used radio and acoustic telemetry for decades to develop fish flow relationships, but don't bother with estimating detection efficiency (except when estimating fish survival), 'cause we know our detection ability is so high for these fish in rivers (e.g. see my paper Effects of River Impoundment...) In other words, imperfect detection may not be an issue depending on the study goals and technology used. Sorry if this is short and messy I'm on smart phone. Cheers. 

See also:  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.12342/abstract

Thanks Matt Falcy, I hadn't seen this one yet.

JP

Yeah that is a good perspective, John. Telemetry is the ultimate way to account for detection. Whats motivating my query is the use of indices of abundance to perform these types of evaluations. I'm trying understand the risks of spurious results and the different ways research deal with this when evaluating e-flows. Telemetry is a good one!

Hi Matt - the paper you directed me to is one that I performed the analysis for! Below is a list of the evaluations of e-flows on fish that account for detection that I'm aware of is anyone is interested.

Beesley, L.S., D.C. Gwinn, A. Price, A.J. King, B. Gawne, J.D. Koehn, and D. Nielsen. (2014). Juvenile fish response to wetland inundation: how antecedent conditions can inform environmental flow policies for native fish. Journal of Applied Ecology, DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.12342

Bradford, M.J., Higgins, P.S., Korman, J. & Sneep, J. (2011) Test of an environmental flow release in a British Columbia river: does more water mean more fish? Freshwater Biology, 56, 2119-2134.

Dodrill, M.J. C.B. Yackulic, B. Gerig, W.E. Pine III, J. Korman, and C. Finch (2014). Do management actions to restore rare habitat benefit native fish conservation? Distribution of juvenile native fish among shoreline habitats of the Colorado River. River Research and Applications. DOI: 10.1002/rra.2842

Hartson, R.B. and B.P. Kennedy (2014). competitive release modifies the impacts of hydrologic alteration for a partially migratory stream predator. Ecology of Freshwater Fish. doi: 10.1111/eff.12145

McManamay, R.A., D.J. Orth, and H.I. Jager (2014) Accounting for variation in species detection in fish community monitoring. Fisheries Management and Ecology, 21, 96-112.

Peterson, J.T. and C.P. Shea (2014) An evaluation of the relations between flow regime components, stream characteristics, species traits, and meta-demographic rates of warm-water-stream fishes: implications for aquatic resource management. River Research and Applications. DOI: 10.1002/rra.2835

Finch, C.G., W.E. Pine III, C.B. Yackulic, M.J. Dodrill, M. Yard, B.S. Gerig, L.G. Coggins Jr., and J. Korman (2015?) Assessing juvenile native fish demographic responses to a steady flow experiment in a large regulated river.