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Estimating demographic parameters for loggerhead sea turtles using mark–recapture data and a multistate model
Author(s) -
Monk Melissa Hedges,
Berkson Jim,
Rivalan Philippe
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
population ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.819
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1438-390X
pISSN - 1438-3896
DOI - 10.1007/s10144-010-0205-x
Subject(s) - mark and recapture , biology , vital rates , fishery , nesting (process) , unobservable , ecology , statistics , population , demography , econometrics , mathematics , population growth , materials science , sociology , metallurgy
The survival for adult loggerhead sea turtles from a saturation tagging study on Bald Head Island, NC, USA, was estimated using a multistate model with unobservable states to relax assumptions that are violated when survival is estimated from multistate models and produce more accurate estimates of survival, recapture, and breeding transition probabilities. The influence of time, trap dependence, and low site fidelity to the study nesting beach on survival and recapture were examined. The best model given the data included an imprecise site‐fidelity effect on survival, constrained the reproductive cycle to 4 years, and contained a time effect on recapture rates. The estimate of annual survival for adult females was of 0.85, producing the highest estimate in the literature for loggerhead sea turtles. Multistate models should be applied to other nesting beach data for sea turtles to improve survival estimates and in turn the ability to model and manage populations.