We consider “participation histories,” binary sequences consisting of alternating finite sequences of 1s and 0s, ending with an infinite sequence of 0s. Our work is motivated by a study of observer tenure in the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). In our analysis, j indexes an observer’s years of service and Xj is an indicator of participation in the survey; 0s interspersed among 1s correspond to years when observers did not participate, but subsequently returned to service. Of interest is the observer’s duration D = max {j: Xj = 1}. Because observed records X = (X1, X2,..., Xn)1 are of finite length, all that we can directly infer about duration is that D ⩾ max {j ⩽n: Xj = 1}; model-based analysis is required for inference about D. We propose models in which lengths of 0s and 1s sequences have distributions determined by the index j at which they begin; 0s sequences are infinite with positive probability, an estimable parameter. We found that BBS observers’ lengths of service vary greatly, with 25.3% participating for only a single year, 49.5% serving for 4 or fewer years, and an average duration of 8.7 years, producing an average of 7.7 counts.
Citation Information
Publication Year | 2014 |
---|---|
Title | Modeling participation duration, with application to the North American Breeding Bird Survey |
DOI | 10.1080/03610926.2014.957854 |
Authors | William A. Link, John R. Sauer |
Publication Type | Article |
Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
Series Title | Communications in Statistics - Theory and Methods |
Index ID | 70175449 |
Record Source | USGS Publications Warehouse |
USGS Organization | Patuxent Wildlife Research Center |
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