The Performance of Mixture Models in Heterogeneous Closed Population Capture–Recapture

Summary Dorazio and Royle (2003, Biometrics 59, 351–364) investigated the behavior of three mixture models for closed population capture–recapture analysis in the presence of individual heterogeneity of capture probability. Their simulations were from the beta‐binomial distribution, with analyses from the beta‐binomial, the logit‐normal, and the finite mixture (latent class) models. In this response, simulations from many different distributions give a broader picture of the relative value of the beta‐binomial and the finite mixture models, and provide some preliminary insights into the situations in which these models are useful.