Summary
Capture-recapture models for estimating demographic parameters allow covariates to be incorporated to better understand population dynamics. However, high-dimensionality and multicollinearity can hamper estimation and inference. We propose a modeling framework to account for these two issues. Principal component analysis is used to reduce the number of predictors into uncorrelated synthetic new variables. Principal components are selected by sequentially assessing their statistical significance. We provide an example on seabird survival to illustrate our approach. Our method requires standard statistical tools, which permits an efficient and easy implementation using standard software.
Highlights
High-dimensionality and multicollinearity hamper model inference capture-recapture
These issues are addressed with principal component capture-recapture (P2CR) models
We provide an example on seabird survival to illustrate the P2CR method
P2CR requires standard statistical tools and is implemented with standard software