Field Work Related To Mark-recapture
Typically a researcher visits a study area and uses traps to capture a group of individuals alive. Each of these individuals is marked with a unique identifier (e.g., a numbered tag or band), and then is released unharmed back into the environment. A mark recapture method was first used for ecological study in 1896 by C.G.J. Petersen to estimate plaice, Platichthys platessa, populations.
Sufficient time is allowed to pass for the marked individuals to redistribute themselves among the unmarked population.
Next, the researcher returns and captures another sample of individuals. Some of the individuals in this second sample will have been marked during the initial visit and are now known as recaptures. Other animals captured during the second visit will not have been captured during the first visit to the study area. These unmarked animals usually are given a tag or band during the second visit and then are released.
Population size can be estimated from as few as two visits to the study area. Commonly, more than two visits are made, particularly if estimates of survival or movement are desired. Regardless of the total number of visits, the researcher simply records the date of each capture of each individual. The "capture histories" generated are analyzed mathematically to estimate population size, survival, or movement.
In the epidemiological setting, different sources of patients take the place of the repeated field visits in ecology. To take a concrete example, establishing a register of children with Type 1 diabetes children were identified from hospital admission records, from general practitioners (family doctors), and from the records of the local Diabetes Association. None of these sources had a complete list, but by putting them together it was possible to do two things, first to see how many children were identified in total, and secondly to estimate how many more children with Type 1 diabetes were living in the vital community
Read more about this topic: Mark And Recapture
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