Dear All,
I am hoping to use Density to calculate density/abundance of pine marten in a study area that has several discrete habitat parcels. The basic study design has 125 regularly (500m) spaced hair tubes which are sampled 6 weekly intervals between June and November. During each sampling period bait is put in every tube on day 1 and on day 10 hair samples are collected for DNA analysis of individual identity.
Just a few basic enquiries with some issues I am having, particularly related to capture data formatting. In terms of sessions and occasions it appears that for the majority of studies both are different - occasions often refer to daily sample collection. In my study, there are 4 sampling periods (sessions?) and 4 hair collection periods (occasions?), each 10 days long. Therefore, in my case both are the same and should be coded 1-4?
The second issue is related to capture data format. My data includes recaptures during each collection period (e.g. 1 animal can be found in as many as 5 tubes). Density seems to drop duplicate capture records which I assume corresponds to these within session recaptures. I have had a look at some example datasets and many appear not to contain such data - do these recapture records need to modified prior to analysis in Density or I am doing something wrong here.
Any help anyone can provide would be very much appreciated.