An open spatial capture–recapture model for estimating density, movement, and population dynamics from line-transect surveys

The purpose of many wildlife population studies is to estimate density, movement, or demographic parameters. Linking these parameters to covariates, such as habitat features, provides additional ecological insight and can be used to make predictions for management purposes. Line-transect surveys, combined with distance sampling methods, are often used to estimate density at discrete points in time, whereas capture–recapture methods are used to estimate movement and other demographic parameters. Recently, open population spatial capture–recapture models have been developed, which simultaneously estimate density and demographic parameters, but have been made available only for data collected from a fixed array of detectors and have not incorporated the effects of habitat covariates.

We developed a spatial capture–recapture model that can be applied to line-transect survey data by modeling detection probability in a manner analogous to distance sampling. We extend this model to a) estim...