Simulation-based assessment of the performance of hierarchical abundance estimators for camera trap surveys of unmarked species.

ABSTRACT: Knowledge on animal abundances is essential in ecology, but is complicated by low detectability of many species. This has led to a widespread use of hierarchical models (HMs) for species abundance, which are also commonly applied in the context of nature areas studied by camera traps (CTs). However, the best choice among these models is unclear, particularly based on how they perform in the face of complicating features of realistic populations, including: movements relative to sites, multiple detections of unmarked individuals within a single survey, and low detectability. We conducted a simulation-based comparison of three HMs (Royle-Nichols, binomial N-mixture and Poisson N-mixture model) by generating groups of unmarked individuals moving according to a bivariate Ornstein-Uhlenbeck pro

SUBMITTER: Martijn B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10533874 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature