Penalized likelihood methods improve parameter estimates in occupancy models

Abstract

Occupancy models are employed in species distribution modelling to account for imperfect detection during field surveys. While this approach is popular in the literature, problems can occur when estimating the model parameters. In particular, the maximum likelihood estimates can exhibit bias and large variance for data sets with small sample sizes, which can result in estimated occupancy probabilities near 0 and 1 (‘boundary estimates’).

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Mar 31, 2015
Source ID
10.1111/2041-210x.12368

Entities

People

  • Jonathon J Valente
  • Matthew G. Betts
  • Rebecca A. Hutchinson
  • Sarah C. Emerson
  • Thomas G. Dietterich

Organizations

  • National Science Foundation
  • Oregon State University
  • United States Department of Defense

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Statistical inference.