Hi all,
I'm still new to modeling and want to ensure I am doing best by my data. I have been reviewing various models in this package for several days and want to ensure I am picking the "right" model. I understand that is subject and depends on my objectives.
I am wanting to correlate particular habitat covariates with abundance in a species of iguana. We already know they only occupy a particular habitat (though I did have a few sites unoccupied by the species). Some sites had 2 iguanas, and one had 15+. I have ten sites across an island, and each site was a 100 m transect in which we recorded all iguanas seen. I only sampled over three weeks this summer with different visits to each set of sites due to logistics. Thus, I only have one season of data. However, my sampling occured during hatching season. I did record hatchlings during the surveys.
I feel like I am looking for an open model, but I only have one season of data and not too many sites. I have been considering whether pcount() or pcountopen() is best. I would prefer to model abundance rather than occupancy.
Can anyone point me in the right direction here?
Thanks, Court