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

• 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

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.