Statistical population reconstruction using age-at-harvest and catch-effort data has recently emerged as a robust and versatile approach to estimating the demographic dynamics of harvested populations of wildlife. Although most reconstruction efforts employ the multinomial likelihood approach to identify which set of model parameters best describes the observed age-at-harvest and catch-effort data, using a χ2 objective function may provide a suitable alternative with a less steep learning curve. Using a harvested population of North American river otter (Lontra canadensis) in Kentucky as a case study, we investigated the performance of population reconstruction using multinomial likelihood and chi-square formulations. We simulated populations under a range of conditions and found that both the accuracy and precision of reconstruction estimates were similar under the two approaches. These results illustrate the potential benefits of using the χ2 approach, which may also allow agencies to incorporate auxiliary information from studies for which the corresponding likelihood contributions have yet to be developed.

中文翻译：

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多项似然法和卡方方法与统计总体重建的比较

使用捕捞年龄和捕捞量数据重建统计种群最近已成为一种可靠且通用的方法，可用于估计野生动物捕捞种群的人口动态。尽管大多数重建工作采用多项似然方法来确定哪组模型参数最能描述观察到的收获年龄和捕获量数据，但使用χ2目标函数可以提供一个学习曲线不那么陡峭的合适替代方案。使用收获的北美水獭种群（加拿大龙舌兰) 在肯塔基州作为案例研究，我们使用多项似然和卡方公式研究了人口重建的性能。我们在一系列条件下模拟了人群，发现在这两种方法下重建估计的准确性和精确度是相似的。这些结果说明了使用χ2方法，这也可能允许机构纳入来自尚未开发相应可能性贡献的研究的辅助信息。