TGL-Lambda: An implementation of TrapGrid to estimate trap attractiveness from heterogeneous field data

TL;DR

TGL-Lambda is a software tool that estimates trap attractiveness in field experiments involving multiple trap and lure types, providing a flexible method for analyzing recapture data in ecological studies.

Contribution

It introduces a new software implementation that allows simultaneous estimation of trap attractiveness across multiple trap types in MRR experiments.

Findings

Enables estimation of lure attractiveness in heterogeneous trap setups

Supports analysis of mixed lure/trap combinations in field data

Provides a flexible approach for ecological trap attractiveness assessment

Abstract

This paper describes a recently developed software called ``TGL-Lambda'' enables quantifying lure attractiveness under a variety of field capture scenarios including mixed lure/trap combinations. TGL-Lambda delivers a flexible approach to simultaneously estimating the {\lambda} value for multiple trap types, accommodating a common situation in ``Mark-release-recapture'' (MRR) experiments in the field. Specifically, where researchers release a known number of marked insects in a field and count how many are recaptured in two to five trap and lure types, and the trap and release locations are known, TGL-Lambda can be used to estimate the attractiveness ({\lambda}) of each of the trap types.