Bayesian modeling of age-specific survival in nesting studies under Dirichlet priors

Biometrics. 2001 Dec;57(4):1059-66. doi: 10.1111/j.0006-341x.2001.01059.x.

Abstract

There has been much work done in nest survival analysis using the maximum likelihood (ML) method. The ML method suffers from the instability of numerical calculations when models having a large number of unknown parameters are used. A Bayesian approach of model fitting is developed to estimate age-specific survival rates for nesting studies using a large class of prior distributions. The computation is done by Gibbs sampling. Some latent variables are introduced to simplify the full conditional distributions. The method is illustrated using both a real and a simulated data set. Results indicate that Bayesian analysis provides stable and accurate estimates of nest survival rates.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Age Factors
  • Animals
  • Bayes Theorem*
  • Biometry
  • Birds / physiology*
  • Female
  • Likelihood Functions
  • Male
  • Reproduction
  • Songbirds / physiology
  • Survival Rate