bjimenez wrote:Dear forum members:
I am working with a database in which all individuals were marked as adults. CJS GOF analysis indicates that the best models include 2 - 3 age groups.
Exactly how did you do this?
Every individual in the .INP file has its own code and I would like to learn if there is a way in which MARK can produce an output about which individuals belong to each group? I thank you very much in advance for your consideration.
Simply put, no. Taken at face value, the fact that a data set consisting of 'marked as adults only' shows a better 'fit' by some measure if the model has multiple age classes is fairly diagnostic of heterogeneity amongst individuals. You have a couple of options -- finite mixture models, or continuous mu/sigma random effect models (introduced in Chapter 14 in the context of closed population abundance models, but the approaches can be applied to CJS models as well). Some people like to try to interpret the pi parameter from mixture models as indicating something about the proportion of indiviuals in a given group, but this is dangerous, and works only in a few specific types of situations. But, to your specific question - no. There is no simple way to assign a given individual to a particular 'group' (age, heterogeneity group, etc.).