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Likelihood Analysis Of Spatial Capture-Recapture Models For Stratified Or Class Structured Populations, J. Royle, Chris Sutherland, Angela Fuller, Catherine Sun

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

We develop a likelihood analysis framework for fitting spatial capture-recapture (SCR) models to data collected on class structured or stratified populations. Our interest is motivated by thenecessity of accommodating the problem of missing observations of individual class membership. This is particularly problematic in SCR data arising from DNA analysis of scat, hair or other material, whichfrequently yields individual identity but fails to identify the sex. Moreover, this can represent a large fraction of the data and, given the typically small sample sizes of many capture-recapture studies based on DNA information, utilization of the data with missing sex information is necessary. …