Application of Capture–Recapture to Addressing Questions in Evolutionary Ecology

Capture–recapture (CR) is one of the most commonly used methods in quantitative ecology. Until recently, much of the emphasis of CR was on the estimation of abundance and vital rates, especially survival rates. Here, I discuss several important advances that have enhanced ecologists’ ability to address questions in evolutionary ecology. Generalizations of CR methodology to include group and covariate effects have allowed direct, empirical modeling of the influence of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on demographic rates. Advances in sampling design and software now allow CR modeling to address questions such as dispersal and natal fidelity, tradeoffs between reproductive effort and survival, senescence, and variability in demographic rates in relation to individual traits, among others. Furthermore, complex ecological and evolutionary questions seem to be especially amenable to a paradigm of multiple alternative (vs. single null) hypotheses, which is consistent both with information-theoretic and Bayesian approaches to inference.

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