An integrated population model reveals source-sink dynamics for competitively subordinate African wild dogs linked to anthropogenic prey depletion

Many African large carnivore populations are declining due to decline of the herbivore populations on which they depend. The densities of apex carnivores like the lion and spotted hyena correlate strongly with prey density, but competitive subordinates like the African wild dog benefit from competitive release when the density of apex carnivores is low, so the expected effect of a simultaneous decrease in resources and dominant competitors is not obvious. 
Wild dogs in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley Ecosystem occupy four ecologically similar areas with well-described differences in the densities of prey and dominant competitors, due to spatial variation in illegal offtake.
We used long-term data to fit a Bayesian integrated population model (IPM) of the demography and dynamics of wild dogs in these four regions. The IPM used Leslie projection to link a Cormack-Jolly-Seber model of area-specific survival (allowing for individual heterogeneity in detection), a zero-inflated Poisson model of are..., Data on the survival and reproduction of African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) were collected by radiocollaring and direct observation in the Luangwa Valley ecosystem. The raw data were entered into a relational database (MS Access) and exported to CSV files using SQL queries. , , # An integrated population model reveals source-sink dynamics for competitively subordinate African wild dogs linked to anthropogenic prey depletion

## Description of the data and file structure

Scott Creel, 4 January 2024

Data and JAGS code for the Bayesian Integrated Population Model of Creel et al. 2014. An integrated population model reveals source-sink dynamics for competitively subordinate African wild dogs linked to anthropogenic prey depletion. *Journal of Animal Ecology.*

The data are in two comma-delimited files:

**bayesian_cjs_Luangwa_WD_data_object.csv**

This file contains capture histories and associated covariates for the survival component model. All of the data codes and columns are described below under code/software, as comments in R code that will read the data in the correct format for the integrated population model code. That code will create four R objects used in the model:

* CH is a dataframe that holds capture histories, with one row per individual...