Using Genetic Information to Estimate the Size of Brook Trout Populations – Dr. Joanna Mills Flemming

Friday, October 23, 2020

3:30-pm-4:30pm

Join Dr. Joanna Mill Flemming from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Dalhousie University for their talk on “Using Genetic Information to Estimate the Size of Brook Trout Populations”.

Abstract
The problem of estimating population size has a long history in statistical ecology. However, the abundance and productivity of highly valuable, severely depleted species remain difficult to assess with standard models. By taking advantage of modern genetics, a new way to estimate abundance (and other key parameters such as mortality rates), the close-kin mark-recapture (CKMR) method, has recently been proposed. It only requires small pieces of tissue, taken from either live or dead animals, and generalizes the standard mark-recapture (MR) approach to use the resulting DNA marks to obtain information about relatedness among individuals in the sample. Here we compare CKMR and MR estimates of population size for brook trout populations and speak to the potential for CKMR going forward.

About the Speaker
Dr. Flemming’s research interests centre on the development of statistical methodologies for data exhibiting spatial and/or temporal dependencies. Real-world problems motivate her research.