Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
8.10 General Computer Programs for Capture-
Recapture Analyses
The
Handbook of Capture-Recapture Analysis
also contains information about
11 programs that are available for the analysis of capture-recapture data.
Of these, MARK is the best-known program devoted to capture-recapture
analyses, and it includes the capabilities of most of the other programs. It
is available free on the Internet (http://www.phidot.org/software/mark/
downloads) and includes a comprehensive guide. Some of the examples in
the handbook also illustrate the use of this program. A healthy discussion
forum for the MARK program, and capture-recapture analyses in general, is
available at phidot.org (http://www.phidot.org/forum/index.php).
In R, two options for fitting capture-recapture models exist. The first is
routines in the RMark package (http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/
RMark/). These routines allow the use of the R language to manipulate and
plot data, while MARK is called in the background to estimate models. In
this way, RMark is an interface to the estimation routines in MARK. The
other R option is to use the routines in the mra package (http://cran.r-project.
org/web/packages/mra/). Like RMark, these routines allow the use of R to
manipulate and plot data, but unlike RMark, these routines estimate models
using FORTRAN routines behind the scenes.
