Design considerations for estimating survival rates with standing age structures

Wildlife Society Bulletin
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Abstract

Survival rate estimates are critical to understanding the dynamics and status of a population, and they are often inferred from samples of the population’s age structure. A recently developed method uses time series of standing age-structure data with information about population growth rate or fecundity to provide explicit maximum likelihood estimators of age-specific survival rates, without assuming population stability or stationarity. We explored properties of these estimators and determined sample size requirements for the estimators to achieve desired levels of precision, limit bias, and limit the probability a rate will be inestimable or its estimate inadmissible (>1).We show that estimating combined rates for adjacent age classes is an effective method of overcoming sensitivity to sampling noise in situations where collecting a larger sample of data is not feasible.
Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Design considerations for estimating survival rates with standing age structures
Series title Wildlife Society Bulletin
DOI 10.1002/wsb.858
Volume 42
Issue 1
Year Published 2018
Language English
Publisher Wiley
Contributing office(s) Alaska Science Center Biology MFEB
Description 8 p.
First page 32
Last page 39
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