different number of days per season

[Katie Grabowski]

I'm working on a multi-season model using colext. I have three seasons with 122 days of camera trap data, and a final season with 76. Currently the data going into my camera operation matrix has a single row for every camera, with down time listed as "problems." As such, I did not use the "sessionCol" to create my operation matrix. 

Now, when I made a UMF to go into colext, its summary says there are 4 primary survey periods (correct) and 110 secondary survey periods (incorrect, I believe). Is the best way to solve this re-formatting my input data so I make use of the sessionCol?

Thanks!

Katie

[Ken Kellner]

Hi Katie,

It sounds like you are using camtrapR to construct your unmarkedFrame. You may get better answers for how to set the arguments to match what you expect on that forum (https://groups.google.com/g/camtrapr). Alternatively you could construct your unmarkedFrame manually, by building your y-matrix from your raw data and using unmarkedMultFrame(), so that you can make sure you have the correct number of primary and secondary surveys for each site.

Ken

[Katie Grabowski]

Hi Ken,

Yes, that's right! That's exactly what I'm trying to do. I'll post the question in that group as well, thank you. 

Can you elaborate on your alternative suggestion? What would my goal be for building my y-matrix from my raw data (i.e., what format would I be working toward?)? And by raw data, you mean my camera operation spreadsheet and record table?

Thanks,

Katie

[Ken Kellner]

Katie,

What I mean is, you could build the unmarkedFrame manually yourself without using camtrapR. You'd have to write custom code to convert your raw camera data (operation spreadsheet/ record table) into a y matrix with a number of rows equal to the number of sites (i.e., number of cameras) and a number of columns equal to primary periods * secondary periods. Each element of the matrix would be 1 if you detected an animal and 0 otherwise. This is what camtrapR is doing for you automatically. If you have had success using camtrapR so far I'd suggest continuing to use that. The approach I describe would only be useful if camtrapR isn't capable of accounting for the specific design of your study for whatever reason and you need a more customized approach.

Ken

[Katie Grabowski]

Hi Ken,

Got it, that makes sense! Thank you. I'll keep working to see if I can get camtrapR to work for me. 

Thanks,

Katie