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On the design of closed recapture experiments
Author(s) -
Alunni Fegatelli Danilo,
Farcomeni Alessio
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
biometrical journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.108
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-4036
pISSN - 0323-3847
DOI - 10.1002/bimj.201500081
Subject(s) - mark and recapture , interval (graph theory) , confidence interval , statistics , convergence (economics) , sampling (signal processing) , population , computer science , homogeneous , mathematics , population size , mathematical optimization , econometrics , demography , filter (signal processing) , combinatorics , sociology , economics , computer vision , economic growth
We propose a method to plan the number of occasions of recapture experiments for population size estimation. We do so by fixing the smallest number of capture occasions so that the expected length of the profile confidence interval is less than or equal to a fixed threshold. In some cases, we solve the optimization problem in closed form. For more complex models we use numerical optimization. We detail models assuming homogeneous, time‐varying, subject‐specific capture probabilities, behavioral response to capture, and combining behavioral response with subject‐specific effects. The principle we propose can be extended to plan any other model specification. We formally show the validity of the approach by proving distributional convergence. We illustrate with simulations and challenging examples in epidemiology and ecology. We report that in many cases adding as few as two sampling occasions may substantially reduce the length of confidence intervals.