Hello all,
I’d be super appreciative of any advice regarding how to proceed with my analysis given the results I’m getting from U-CARE.
I want to use multi-state CR models in E-SURGE to investigate the effect of environmental conditions on female costs of reproduction. To do this I have constructed recapture histories for 1156 individuals across 32 years (so individuals enter and exit the study at different points), with each occasion corresponding to a Spring-Summer period when breeding occurs. I’ve used 7 states, with 6 corresponding to differing degrees of reproductive investment and the 7th corresponding to an individual being found dead. Here are a couple of examples of recapture histories:
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As recommended, I wanted to conduct goodness of fit tests in U-CARE before proceeding with the E-SURGE analyses, but I’m finding that I’m a bit stuck with their interpretation. The results are:
WBWA (X2 = 447.810, df = 191, p = 0.000)
3G.SR (X2 = 28.719, df = 46, p = 0.98)
3G. Sm (X2 = 290.593, df =190, p = 0.000)
M.ITEC (X2 = 23.7, df =13, p = 0.03)
M.LTEC (X2 = 0.000, df = 0.000, p = NaN)
So, this seems to suggest that transience isn’t a problem, but that there is evidence for memory and trap dependence (however, there isn’t enough data to assess long-term trap dependence). Is my interpretation reasonable?
I’m struggling most to understand what I should do given the apparent memory. This seems important to the question I’m wanting to answer given that I might expect females experiencing certain environmental conditions to be more likely to breed successfully in consecutive years etc. I’m also not sure if the trap dependence results are somewhat driven by the nature of the data, particularly because each occasion corresponds to a single year? I’d be hugely grateful for any recommendations for how to proceed!
Thanks in advance,
Charlotte