title: Evaluation of abundance indexes in open population studies: a comparison in populations of small mammals in southern Brazil.
abstract: Many manuscripts comparing populations and/or analysing the structure of animal communities use indexes of captures as synonymous of abundance. However, the basic methods more suitable to this assumption - probabilistic estimates based on equal capture probability - have not been considered. In this study, the deviations caused by different types of capture indexes are compared with a common probabilistic population estimator (Cormack-Jolly-Seber). The analyses showed that Minimum Number Known Alive (MNKA) and the number of individuals showed greater association with the population estimator than with non-probabilistic indexes based on recaptures. Therefore, none of the indexes presented the same performance to estimate population size estimation which can lead to ecological misinterpretation. Some recommendations were also described.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Ecologia e Zoologia, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina - UFSC, Campus Universitário, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil.
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Graipel
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Ecologia e Zoologia, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina - UFSC, Campus Universitário, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil.
authors.forename: M I M
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Hernández
authors.affiliation: Caipora Cooperativa, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Salvador
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001938:Brazil; D008322:Mammals / Q000145:classification*; D011156:Population Density; D025341:Principal Component Analysis