Multiscale occ: categorical variables for theta

[jCeradini]

Hi folks,

I'm using the multiscale occupancy model in RMark: MultScalOcc. I have a bunch of sites and each site contains many plots, so I'm estimating psi for sites and theta for plots.

I'm coding theta (plot) level variables as time-varying covariates, like cover1, cover2, cover3...where the number corresponds to the plot. This works well for continuous variables but I also have categorical plot variables.

Is it possible to use categorical variables to model theta?
Is it possible to format a categorical variable as a time-varying covariate?

My attempts so far have failed. I've got the column names for the categorical variable setup to be time-varying but the columns are factors, so that causes multiple problems, of course. I could setup the 1/0 dummy coding for the variable but then there would be multiple columns for each plot and I don't understand how that would work. The variable has 5 levels.

Thanks!
Joe

[jlaake]

see ?make.time.factor

[jCeradini]

That function's incredible. Sorry I missed it.
Thanks Jeff.