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Revisions and Further Evaluations of the Right Whale Abundance Model: Improvements for Hypothesis Testing
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2021
[PDF-1.22 MB]
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Description:The National Marine Fisheries Service relies upon a published Bayesian state-space model to estimate annual abundance and uses that to characterize the status of the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) population. I developed modifications to that model that differently characterize annual estimates of age-specific survival and may better represent population demography over time. In particular, I added an indicator variable within the survival process to test the hypothesis that mean survival changed following dramatic changes in right whale area-use patterns beginning in 2011, which I refer to as a regime change. A similar modification could be used to test if survival rates differ following some future mitigation measure(s) designed to reduce threats to right whales. I show that the addition of the “regime” parameter, while providing strong evidence of a change in mean survival, had little effect on 3 important estimates of the abundance model: population size, the number of new entrants, and adult female survival. I discuss future modification that should be accomplished that would allow testing other demographic effects over time.
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Rights Information:CC0 Public Domain
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