How do I create and select models?

Forum for discussion of general questions related to study design and/or analysis of existing data - software neutral.

How do I create and select models?

Postby rwolfe4275 » Mon Feb 22, 2021 12:29 pm

Hi everyone,

I am new to the forum and to the CMR game. I am attempting to perform an abundance estimate for a species of snake. My data is sparse and I am not sure how to go about analyzing it. I have been reading the MARK book as well as many other sources and I'm honestly not really sure how to get started (Also trying to determine if I need to go Bayesian). Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have put some details about my data and queries below.

I have 73 individuals captured on 6 monthly trapping occasions - April, May, and October of each 2019 and 2020. Within these captures there are approximately 10-12 individuals captured per occasion (month) and, in total, there are only 13 recaptures. (I can include the capture histories if this would help).

I have a known annual survival rate (probability) from previous telemetry work and, alongside my data collected in 2019/20, I have survey effort, sex, and morphometric data for each capture.

I know that I need to use either an open or robust model, but I do not know how to properly select which route to go and how to create and select a model that best fits my data. Everything I have tried so far using JS and POPAN and program MARK have identified in the testing stage that I do not have sufficient data. I was looking at potentially using Bayesian stats to include prior information and perhaps a data augmented matrix but, having no previous experience with CMR, this seems even more daunting!

If someone has suggestions, papers, or experience with this sort of issue, please let me know!

Thanks.
rwolfe4275
 
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