R code and output supporting: Time series sightability modeling of animal populations

Abstract

The goal of our study was to expand a previously developed model-based approach to include random effects and a temporal spline for time series modeling of multiple years of operational survey data. We developed a Bayesian hierarchical model as our framework to build and compare fixed-effects and temporal model-based sightability models applied to 12 years of MN moose operational survey data. Here, we share the Program R code and data necessary to replicate the manuscript results that demonstrate how our time series sightability modeling approach can increase the precision of population estimators and predict population dynamics with smoother (and thus more realistic trends) through time.