A spatial capture-recapture model for territorial species

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new spatial capture-recapture model that accounts for territorial behavior in species, improving population estimates from spatially-referenced data.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel statistical model that incorporates dependence between individual locations to better reflect territorial species behavior.

Findings

Accounting for territorial behavior improves population size estimates.

Simulation results show enhanced accuracy over traditional models.

Application to small mammal data demonstrates practical utility.

Abstract

Advances in field techniques have lead to an increase in spatially-referenced capture-recapture data to estimate a species' population size as well as other demographic parameters and patterns of space usage. Statistical models for these data have assumed that the number of individuals in the population and their spatial locations follow a homogeneous Poisson point process model, which implies that the individuals are uniformly and independently distributed over the spatial domain of interest. In many applications there is reason to question independence, for example when species display territorial behavior. In this paper, we propose a new statistical model which allows for dependence between locations to account for avoidance or territorial behavior. We show via a simulation study that accounting for this can improve population size estimates. The method is illustrated using a case study of small mammal trapping data to estimate avoidance and population density of adult female field voles (Microtus agrestis) in northern England.