Modeling of Pinniped Population Trends: Developing information-theoretic models for testing the power and significance of pinniped survival rate estimates using differing monitoring techniques.

Summary | Background | Concept | Objectives | Literature

Current approaches to determine the statistical power and significance of data collected through various methods, to estimate survival rates of animal populations of interest have substantial limitations. Different assumptions and parameters apply to such methods, that cannot always be assessed and that preclude a direct comparison of optimal sampling regimes and experimental designs. In addition, the applicability of null-hypothesis testing using arbitrary probability thresholds has been questioned. Recent trends to incorporate information theoretic ranking of multiple models have not been applied to such efforts, and power testing in particular. We propose to develop a new method to estimate power and sensitivity of different methods to estimate survival rates in wild pinniped populations. These new methods will be based on the combination of information-theoretic approaches and randomization techniques, and will be directly suited to analyzing data from a new telemetry transmitter recently developed specifically for such applications.

This project is supported by:

North Pacific Universities Marine Mammal Research Consortium through the North Pacific Marine Science Foundation.