Joint Modeling of Survey and Survival Data to Estimate Population Trends in Mourning Doves

• Activity Number: 41
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, July 29, 2012 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics and the Environment
• Author(s): Nicholas Michaud*+ and Philip Dixon
• Companies: Iowa State University and Iowa State University
• Keywords: Ecology ; Population Modeling ; Bayesian hierarchical

Abstract

Mourning Doves (Zenaida macroura) are a populous species of bird, found throughout the United States. Due to their popularity as a gamebird, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service monitors trends in Mourning Dove population size to determine harvest policy. Current estimates of population trend are based on a state-space time series model combining four data streams. We propose a Bayesian hierarchical model for trend estimation, which uses these data streams in conjunction with age and location-specific survival information from a band recovery program. The hierarchical model, through the inclusion of survival data, more accurately models the underlying ecological processes driving trends in dove population. Furthermore, the new model significantly reduces variability in our trend estimates.