Tools and Models

[Administrator]

Area to discuss tools and models used in wildlife demography

[Kylee Graham]

My name is Kylee Graham, a Phd and DVM student at the Atlantic Veterinary College in PEI, Canada. I am currently studying sarcoptic mange in PEI red foxes under the supervision of Dr. Megan Jones. We had an outbreak of this emerging disease over the last few years, and are now looking to determine if this disease has impacted our island population. There has never been a population census completed before for red foxes on the island, but numerous sources of data from over the years are available, and I think they may work with the PoPRecon model but I have a couple questions hopefully someone can answer !

I was in contact with Dr. Skalski and he referred me to the program and guide for population reconstruction. However, the guide did not mention if the age at harvest data has to be from at least 4 consecutive years. We have harvest data for 45 years, and age at harvest data for 8 years straight pooled from 1970-78, then random years here and there for unpooled age at harvest data. Is there any way to incorporate these unpooled years that are not consecutive into the model? 

As well, for auxiliary measures, we have varying data that can be used to calculate abundance but they are from various techniques. Is there a way to account for this in the model? We also have survival probability estimates I think we could use if these data are insufficient. 

Finally, we have information that contributes to fecundity knowledge of our population, including litter sizes, proportion of barren females, and these are age specific data. Is there a way to add these to the model to increase it's robust -ness?