Hi, I'm looking to implement a study where I have 10 trapping grids (each with 20 traps each), surveyed for 6 nights each. However, due to logistical constraints I can only survey 5 grids per night, so I was going to survey 5 grids for 6 nights, followed by the other 5 for the following 6 nights. How would this effect the encounter history?
E.g. The sampling occasions ('1' sampled, '0' not sampled) will look sampling like this:
Grids 1-5: 111111000000
Grids 6-10: 000000111111
The grids are spaced far enough apart that animals are unlikely to occur across trapping grids, and therefore animals trapped during nights 1-6 will unlikely be trapped during nights 7-12. Their encounter history may be something like: 11010100000 or 000000110110. Is this OK?
When inputting data into MARK, would the encounter history be 12 sampling occasions, or 6 (combining the two sets of 6?). Does this have implications for the MARK analysis?
Thanks for any advice!