Matthew R. Schofield – författare

This  comprehensive book, rich with applications,  offers a quantitative framework for the analysis of the various capture-recapture models for open animal populations, while also addressing associated computational methods.

 The state of our wildlife populations provides a litmus test for the state of our environment, especially in light of global warming and the increasing pollution of our land, seas, and air. In addition to monitoring our food resources such as fisheries, we need to protect endangered species from the effects of human activities (e.g. rhinos, whales, or encroachments on the habitat of orangutans). Pests must be be controlled, whether insects or viruses, and we need to cope with growing feral populations such as opossums, rabbits, and pigs.

Accordingly, we need to obtain information about a given population’s dynamics, concerning e.g. mortality, birth, growth, breeding, sex, and migration, and determine whether the respective population is increasing , static, or declining. There are many methods for obtaining population information, but the most useful (and most work-intensive) is generically known as “capture-recapture,” where we mark or tag a representative sample of individuals from the population and follow that sample over time using recaptures, resightings, or dead recoveries. Marks can be natural, such as stripes, fin profiles, and even DNA; or artificial, such as spots on insects. Attached tags can, for example, be simple bands or streamers, or more sophisticated variants such as radio and sonic transmitters.

To estimate population parameters, sophisticated and complex mathematical models have been devised on the basis of recapture information and computer packages. This book addresses the analysis of such models. It is primarily intended for ecologists and wildlife managers who wish to apply the methods to the types of problems discussed above, though it will also benefit researchers and graduate students in ecology. Familiarity with basic statistical concepts is essential.

This comprehensive book covers a wide variety of methods for estimating the sizes and related parameters of closed populations. With the effect of climate change, and human territory invasion, we have seen huge species losses and a major biodiversity decline. Populations include plants, trees, various land and sea animals, and some human populations. With such a diversity of populations, an extensive variety of different methods are described with the collection of different types of data. For example, we have count data from plot sampling, which can also allow for incomplete detection. There is a large chapter on occupancy methods where a major interest is determining whether a particular species is present or not. Citizen and opportunistic survey data can also be incorporated. A related topic is species methods, where species richness and species'' interactions are of interest.

A variety of distance methods are discussed. One can use distances from points and lines, as wellas nearest neighbor distances. The applications are extensive, and include marine, acoustic, and aerial surveys, using multiple observers or detection devices. Line intercept measurements have a role to play such as, for example, estimating parameters relating to plant coverage.

An increasingly important class of removal methods considers successive “removals" from a population, with physical removal or "removal" by capture-recapture of marked individuals. With the change-in-ratio method, removals are taken from two or more classes, e.g., males and females. Effort data used for removals can also be used.

A very important method for estimating abundance is the use of capture-recapture data collected discretely or continuously and can be analysed using both frequency and Bayesian methods. Computational aspects of fitting Bayesian models are described. A related topic of growing interest is the use of spatial and camera methods.

With the plethora of models there has been a corresponding development of various computational methods and packages, which are often mentioned throughout. Covariate data is being used more frequently, which can reduce the number of unknown parameters by using logistic and loglinear models. An important computational aspect is that of model selection methods. The book provides a useful list of over 1400 references.