The Annals of Applied Statistics
2016, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1572–1589
DOI: 10.1214/16-AOAS949
© Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 2016

OPEN MODELS FOR REMOVAL DATA

BY ELENI MATECHOU, RACHEL S. MCCREA1, BYRON J. T. MORGAN,
DARRYN J. NASH AND RICHARD A. GRIFFITHS

University of Kent

Individuals of protected species, such as amphibians and reptiles, often
need to be removed from sites before development commences. Usually, the
population is considered to be closed. All individuals are assumed to (i) be
present and available for detection at the start of the study period and (ii) remain
at the site until the end of the study, unless they are detected. However,
the assumption of population closure is not always valid. We present
new removal models which allow for population renewal through birth and/or
immigration, and population depletion through sampling as well as through
death/emigration. When appropriate, productivity may be estimated and a
Bayesian approach allows the estimation of the probability of total population
depletion. We demonstrate the performance of the models using data on
common lizards, Zootoca vivipara, and great crested newts, Triturus cristatus.

Read the full paper here https://kar.kent.ac.uk/55734/