2024/09/18 by Jonathan Babyn, Daniel E. Ruzzante, Mark V. Bravington +1 · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Mathematics · #Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies #Census and Population Estimation #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/2041-210x.14419
openalex publication_date 2024/09/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/23
Abstract Close‐kin mark–recapture (CKMR) is a method that allows estimating population census size, among other parameters, through the observed number of pairs that are close‐kin including parent–offspring pairs (POPs) and half‐sibling pairs (HSPs). CKMR models are capable of estimating abundance, fecundity and survival at age using POPs and HSPs from different cohorts. The link between effective population size ( N e ) and the number of ‘within‐cohort’ sibling pairs has been noted before but how to actually achieve such an estimate with CKMR has not been previously demonstrated. We show it is possible to use the number of ‘within‐cohort’ sibling pairs along with POPs and ‘different‐cohort’ HSPs to estimate N e . These can be combined with an estimate of annual variance in number of offspring to estimate the lifetime variance of total reproductive success which can be used to find N e . We show that the variance in number of offspring produced by adults in a given year is related to the within‐cohort comparisons. Our approach is demonstrated on an individual‐based simulation where we show that the CKMR N e estimate offers similar results to N e estimated from methods like linkage disequilibrium. Our methods allow estimating N e using CKMR while also estimating demographic parameters.