Hello everyone,
I have a general question related to the use of the Royle Nichols 2003 model vs the single season standard model. I have a set of 60 camera trap sites set at locations within the home range of my species of interest. I therefore aim to not assessing "true occupancy" but instead intensity of habitat use. To do this I originally intended to apply the standard single season occupancy model. However just in order to compare other model types I noticed that the Royle and Nichols 2003 model has much more support (based on AIC) for my data set, which probably implies that my data is subject to abundance induced heterogeneity between sites.
I was therefore wondering whether it is valid to use the Royle Nichols 2003 model in order to take into account abundance induced, with not an aim to assess abundance? And use it as a tool to look at the influence of covariates on intensity of habitat use? Or should I go back to the standard model.
Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.