All,
I have been fiddling with a data set collected under a robust-design framework, 4 years, 6 sampling occasions per year. My interest is in using the robust-design approach, but I am not interested in estimating gamma/epsilon (for biological, not statistical reasons). I have both site specific covariates and survey-dependent covariates and I have ran the data through a standard RD design where I can estimate gamma/epsilon.
I am wondering (and looking for a reference/example), is there a simple way to keep the structure and ease of implementation of an RD design for multi-season study when gamma and epsilon are not of interest, or am I going to have to brute force this analysis and break the dataset into 4 years and run each year separately as I am interested in annual occupancy estimates and associate detection both within and between years? Should I be looking at fixing the parameters for gamma/epsilon?
Note, I have been working in MARK via RMark.
Bret
Tx A&M