strandCet: R package for estimating natural and non-natural mortality-at-age of cetaceans from age-structured strandings.

ABSTRACT: Mortality is one of the most important parameters for the study of population dynamics. One of the main sources of information to calculate the mortality of cetaceans arises from the observed age-structure of stranded animals. A method based on an adaptation of a Heligman-Pollard model is proposed. A freely accessible package of functions (strandCet) has been created to apply this method in the statistical software R. Total, natural, and anthropogenic mortality-at-age is estimated using only data of stranded cetaceans whose age is known. Bayesian melding estimation with Incremental Mixture Importance Sampling is used for fitting this model. This characteristic, which accounts for uncertainty, further eases the estimation of credible intervals. The package also includes functions to

SUBMITTER: Saavedra C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6183513 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature