Closed Capture Model Averaging in MARK

[scoster]

Greetings,

I am interested in model averaging and I found the following point on page 14-29 of the section on Closed Capture Estimation: "it is legitimate to model average across data types that are based on the same likelihood, but not across those based on different likelihoods."

My question is this: If I am using the data types of Huggins Closed Population Estimation, Huggins Closed Captures with Heterogeneity, and Huggins Full Closed Captures with Heterogeneity--are these all based on the same likelihood?

I recognize that it would not be appropriate to model average data from Huggins Closed Population Estimation with 'regular' Closed Population Estimation, but I'm not sure if the addition of heterogeneity from Huggins Closed Population Estimation to Huggins Closed Captures with Heterogeneity changes the likelihood equation and therefore should not be model averaged together.

Thanks for your help,
Stephanie

[bmcclintock]

Hi Stephanie,

It is perfectly legit to model average over those different parameterizations of the Huggins model. They are all based on the same likelihood.

Cheers,
Brett

[scoster]

Thanks for your help!

Stephanie