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BaSTA: an R package for Bayesian estimation of age-specific survival from incomplete mark–recapture/recovery data with covariates
Article first published online: 17 FEB 2012
DOI: 10.1111/j.2041-210X.2012.00186.x
© 2012 The Authors. Methods in Ecology and Evolution © 2012 British Ecological Society
Additional Information
How to Cite
Colchero, F., Jones, O. R. and Rebke, M. (2012), BaSTA: an R package for Bayesian estimation of age-specific survival from incomplete mark–recapture/recovery data with covariates. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 3: 466–470. doi: 10.1111/j.2041-210X.2012.00186.x
Publication History
- Issue published online: 7 JUN 2012
- Article first published online: 17 FEB 2012
- Received 26 October 2011; accepted 12 January 2012 Handling editor: Satu Ramula
Keywords:
- Bayesian inference;
- capture–recapture;
- capture–recovery;
- free software;
- long-term individual-based data sets;
- R project;
- survival analysis
Summary
1. Understanding age-specific survival in wild animal populations is crucial to the study of population dynamics and is therefore an essential component of several fields including evolution, management and conservation.
2. We present Bayesian survival trajectory analysis (BaSTA), a free open-source software package for estimating age-specific survival from capture–recapture/recovery data under a Bayesian framework.
3. The method copes with low recapture probabilities, unknown ages (e.g. because of left-truncation) and unknown ages at death (e.g. because of right-censoring). It estimates survival and detection parameters as well as the unknown birth and death times (i.e. latent states) while allowing users to test a range of survival models. In addition, the effect of continuous or categorical covariates can be evaluated.
4. This tool facilitates the analysis of age patterns of survival in long-term animal studies and will enable researchers to robustly infer the effect of covariates, even with large amounts of missing data.