While there are a number of studies that employ both constant effort mist-netting and audio-visual survey methods, there are very few that combine the numbers from those surveys into a single database with which to make population estimates and/or calculate diversity. I am looking to combine the two into a single dataset to estimate different facets of biodiversity. At the current state of our collective understanding of how these two broad methods interplay, is it wiser to analyse the two separately or are there options out there for effectively combining them into a single database to analyse?
Combining them in a single database only makes sense if you have one or more key fields that can connect a record in one database to one or more records in the other and vice versa. In other words, you need to be able to make sure that a given record in the mist-netting survey covers the same 'stuff' (I am no field expert, but I am guessing that 'stuff' here is bird counts from the same time-period and geographical area) as one or more records in the audio visual surveys. (Or the other way around). If that is possible you can use those records on both sides to make a comparison.
This only answers your question from a data-engineering perspective. Perhaps the 'current state of our collective understanding of how these two broad methods interplay', as you put it so nicely, prevents people from trying. If the data of the two methods do not cover the same time-space well enough, then that could be another reason why it is not done.
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