Importance of Accounting for Detection Heterogeneity When Estimating Abundance: the Case of French Wolves

International audience Assessing conservation strategies requires reliable estimates of abundance. Because detecting all individuals is most often impossible in free-ranging populations, estimation procedures have to account for a <1 detection probability. Capture-recapture methods allow biologis...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Conservation Biology
Main Authors: Cubaynes, Sarah, Pradel, Roger, Choquet, Rémi, Duchamp, Christophe, Gaillard, Jean-Michel, Lebreton, Jean-Dominique, Marboutin, Eric, Miquel, Christian, Reboulet, Anne-Marie, POILLOT, CAROLE, Taberlet, Pierre, Gimenez, Olivier
Other Authors: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2010
Subjects:
Canis lupus
E-SURGE
individual heterogeneity
mark-recapture
mixture models
multievent model
population size canis lupus
heterogeneidad individual
marca-recaptura
modelos mezclados
modelo multievento
tamaño poblacional
stat
envir
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01431.x
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03499369/file/09-067_CubaynesManuscriptv2.pdf
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03499369
Description
Summary:International audience Assessing conservation strategies requires reliable estimates of abundance. Because detecting all individuals is most often impossible in free-ranging populations, estimation procedures have to account for a <1 detection probability. Capture-recapture methods allow biologists to cope with this issue of detectability. Nevertheless, capture-recapture models for open populations are built on the assumption that all individuals share the same detection probability, although detection heterogeneity among individuals has led to underestimating abundance of closed populations. We developed multievent capture-recapture models for an open population and proposed an associated estimator of population size that both account for individual detection heterogeneity (IDH). We considered a two-class mixture model with weakly and highly detectable individuals to account for IDH. In a noninvasive capture-recapture study of wolves we based on genotypes identified in feces and hairs, we found a large underestimation of population size (27% on average) occurred when IDH was ignored.

Similar Items