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.