Hierarchical Models for Wildlife Surveys over Time and Space

Organizers: Devin Johnson, National Marine Mammal Laboratory National Oceanic and Atmospheric, Seattle, WA

Paul Conn, National Marine Mammal Laboratory National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Seattle, WA

Mevin Hooten, USGS Colorado Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO

Sponsors: TWS Biometrics Working Group

TWS Spatial Ecology and Telemetry Working Group

Wildlife ecologists and managers often use survey data to make inferences about demography and population trends over space and time. Such data are often imperfect with regards to the parameter of interest. For instance, animals are often imperfectly detected, and some quantities of interest (e.g., population trend, survival) are never directly observed, and must be inferred indirectly. In many such cases, hierarchical modeling provides a mechanism for making inferences from these data. Hierarchical modeling also is a natural framework for addressing temporal and spatial autocorrelation in survey data, two features that are ubiquitous in ecological datasets. In this symposium, we bring together a diverse group of speakers who address recent method developments in hierarchical modeling for wildlife surveys, as well as case studies and practical applications.