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Hi,
I have a set of radio telemetry data for a New Zealand parrot, the kea. I am tempted to use the nest survival model in MARK to produce survivorship estimates from this data. The data is very similar to real nesting data. The interval between telemetry checks ranges from daily to monthly, and when a bird dies we often do not know on exactly which day it died. Is the nest survival model a valid tool for estimating daily survivorship from this type of data?
Thanks,
Josh Kemp
New Zealand

Josh,

I think the nest survival model is worth considering in your case.

Here are a few citations focused on such applications.

Schmidt, J. H., Taylor, E. J. & Rexstad, E. A. (2006) Survival of common goldeneye ducklings in interior Alaska. Journal of Wildlife Management, 70, 792-798.

Schwartz, C. C., Haroldson, M. A., White, G. C., Harris, R. B., Cherry, S., Keating, K. A., Moody, D. & Servheen, C. (2006) Temporal, spatial, and environmental influences on the demographics of grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Wildlife Monographs, 1-68.

Mong, T. W. & Sandercock, B. K. (2007) Optimizing radio retention and minimizing radio impacts in a field study of upland sandpipers. Journal of Wildlife Management, 71, 971-980.

Schmidt, J. H., J. A. Walker, M. S. Lindberg, D. S. Johnson, and S. E. Stephens. 2010. A General Bayesian Hierarchical Model for Estimating Survival of Nests and Young. The Auk 127:379-386.

If you don't think you will meet the assumptions of the model well, and you need additional flexibility, you could also consider putting your problem in a multistate context (see Devineau, O., et al. 2010. aluating the Canada lynx reintroduction programme in Colorado: patterns in mortality. Journal of Applied Ecology 47:524-531 for an example).

Maybe Jay Rotella, Steve Dinsmore, Mark Lindberg, etc., are watching the posts and can chime in with other thoughts.

Paul

Josh,
Paul is right, you will probably be good to use the nest survival model on your data. But, I would ask, what is the need for daily estimates for your species? Is there a reason you need a daily estimate as opposed to a weekly, bi-weekly, etc? I just wondered.

You might be interested in a paper I wrote as well:

Collier, B. A., K. B. Melton, J. B. Hardin, N. J. Silvy and M. J. Peterson. 2009. Impact of reproductive effort on survival of Rio Grande wild turkey hens in Texas. Wildlife Biology 15(4): 370-379

Its roughly like what you are wanting to do and I have R code for doing the delta method CI's that Jeff and Evan helped me work out if you come to that point.

Bret