Robust-Design model exercise

This exercise is designed to show how to run program MARK to compute survival and capture probabilities and estimates of temporary emmigration from 'capture-recapture' data.

Input data consists of capture-histories of individual animals or Summarized frequencies of capture-histories.

The following is a piece of a sample data file:

/* Robust Design Example, 15 occasions, 1 group,
   time intervals =  0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 */
000000111011101 1 ;
000000111111000 1 ;
000001000000000 2 ;
000001001110100 1 ;
000001010000000 1 ;
000001100000010 1 ;
000001100111100 1 ;
000001101111100 1 ;

Notice that the data looks exactly like the input for capture-recapture open or closed models. Also, in the comments at the beginning of the file it tells us that there are two secondary occasions in the first primary period, 2 in the second, 4 in the 3rd, 5 in the 4th, and 2 in the 5th primary period. The 0's indicate no time elapsed between occasions, and the 1's indicate that the next occasion starts a new primary period.

Running the program

Start MARK by clicking 'Start' button (lower left corner usually), 'Programs', 'MARK 4.2', then 'MARK'. Or, double-click the MARK icon on the desktop.

When the form appears, go to the 'File' menu and select 'New'.

A dialog window will appear where you can specify the data type, title, filename, and occasion. For this example, click 'Robust design' under 'Select Data Type', then select 'Huggins closed captures'. Click in the textbox under 'Title for this set of data', and type:'Robust design exercise'. Next, click the button labelled 'Click to select file'.

The program will present a dialog box asking for the name of the input file. Find the folder containing the sample input file (c:\program files\mark\examples), then click on the file (robust design huggins.inp), then click 'Open'.

Next, change the number of encounter occasions to 15.

Click 'Easy robust design' and enter 5 for the number of primary periods. Enter 2 for the number of occasions in primary period 1, 2 for primary period 2, 4 for period 3, 5 for period 4, and 2 for period 5. Then click 'OK'.

Run the models:
phi(.),gam"(.),gam'(.),p(.,.),
phi(.),gam"(.),gam'(.),p(t,.),
phi(.),gam"(.)=gam'(.),p(.,.),