Hi,
At some point, I got it in my head that for the purposes of SECR (assume single session analysis for now), traps should not be isolated in space by more than an home range diameter, because if they were, animals could occupy the area between traps but not be available for capture at any trap. However, I couldn't find refrence to any specific assumption of SECR that would be violated by such a "gap" in a trap array in papers by Efford, Borchers, Dawson, and colleauges, and Royle et al. (2009) specified that secr models "deal with the problem of holes in the trapping array".
Suppose I have spatially explicit capture data from 2 simultaneously-sampled arrays of traps, with trap spacing set to < an average home range radius within arrays, but with > double the average home range diameter separating arrays (assume the entire landscape is homogeneous, suitable habitat, and that animal density does not differ within the greater study area). Numbers of captures and/or recaptures on either of the arrays are only marginally sufficient or insufficient for SECR analysis, but pooled data from both arrays are adequate. Would it be appropriate to estimate density from these data in a single-session SECR analysis?
It occurs to me that exporting an intgration mesh while limiting it to points within a specified distance from traps (say double the average home range diameter) would constrain the points in the mesh to be within the area where home range centers of animals at risk of capture occur, but that a default, rectangular mesh still might not violate any assumptions of the method (though it might slow computation)?
Thanks!
Eric