Post-weaning survival in kangaroos is high and constant until senescence: Implications for population dynamics

Large herbivores typically have consistently high prime-aged adult survival and lower, more variable, juvenile and senescent survival. Many kangaroo populations undergo greater fluctuations in density than other large herbivores, but age- and sex-specific survival of kangaroos and their response to environmental variation remain poorly estimated. We used long-term capture-mark-recapture data on 920 individuals to investigate the survival component of eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus) population dynamics. Forage availability and population density were monitored quarterly and included as predictors of survival in Bayesian Cormack-Jolly-Seber models. Annual survival probabilities were estimated for 5 age classes: 0 years (juveniles), 1–2 years (sub-adults), 3–6 years (prime-aged adults), 7–9 years (pre-senescent adults), and ≥10 years (senescent adults). Survival of juveniles varied widely during our 12-year study, ranging from 0.07–0.90 for females and 0.05–0.92 for males. Sub-a..., Descriptions of the methods used to collect, prepare, and analyse the data are in Bergeron et al.: Post-weaning survival in kangaroos is high and constant until survival: implications for population dynamics.
Individual IDs have been replaced by randomised numbers., Observation history
Each row represents an individual, and each column represents a year, from 2008 to 2020.
Represents the observation process of the Cormack-Jolly-Seber model used to estimate apparent survival. Denotes whether an individual was observed during the annual August-November field season or not. 0 = individual was not observed on the study area, 1 = individual was observed on the study area.
obsF.csv contains female data, obsM.csv contains male data.
State
Each row represents an individual, and each column represents a year, from 2008 to 2020.
Represents the state process of the Cormack-Jolly-Seber model used to estimate apparent survival. Denotes whether an individual was truly alive in a given year or not. 0 = individual has been found dead and is therefore certainly not alive, 1 = individual was observed this year or in a later year and is therefore necessarily alive, NA = individual was not observed, state is therefore not known with certainty.
stateF.csv contains fema...