Say a researcher was interested in determining the number of adults vs. juveniles of species X trapped during a small mammal survey. Does there exist a relatively reliable way of doing this based on standard field measurements?
Let’s say a total of 200 individuals of species X were sampled, and the following data recorded: sex, total length, tail length, hind foot length, ear length, and weight. For the sake of this question imagine no additional data is available (e.g. additional observations recorded in the field, access to collected specimen material, etc.).
Thanks, and looking forward to the feedback.
Evan
Hey Evan,
I have once overcome this kind of difficulty but only by having some individuals that were "aged" for sure.
For the individuals that were aged, I created a regression of age on body length (I only had one measurment).
For all individuals I then predicted the age from the body length measurment using the "predict" function and my model in R.
This ended up being 90% accurate when I compared the "observed age" and the "estimated age" on a subset of the data for which the age was available.
You could probably try this on different measurments and settle for the method that gives you the best accuracy. Good luck.
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