Estimating invasive rodent abundance using removal data and hierarchical models
| Autor: | Gimenez, Olivier |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2025 |
| Předmět: | |
| Druh dokumentu: | Working Paper |
| Popis: | Invasive rodents pose significant ecological, economic, and public health challenges. Robust methods are needed for estimating population abundance to guide effective management. Traditional methods such as capture-recapture are often impractical for invasive species due to ethical and logistical constraints. Here, I showcase the application of hierarchical multinomial N-mixture models for estimating the abundance of invasive rodents using removal data. First, I perform a simulation study which demonstrates minimal bias in abundance estimates across a range of sampling scenarios. Second, I analyze removal data for two invasive rodent species, namely coypus (Myocastor coypus) in France and muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) in the Netherlands. Using hierarchical multinomial N-mixture models, I examine the effects of temperature on abundance while accounting for imperfect and time-varying capture probabilities. I also show how to accommodate spatial variability using random effects, and quantify uncertainty in parameter estimates. Overall, I hope to demonstrate the flexibility and utility of hierarchical models in invasive species management. Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, 1 table |
| Databáze: | arXiv |
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