Estimation of abundance is important in both open and closed population capture-recapture analysis, but unmodeled heterogeneity of capture probability leads to negative bias in abundance estimates. This article defines and develops a suite of open population capture-recapture models using finite mixtures to model heterogeneity of capture and survival probabilities. Model comparisons and parameter estimation use likelihood-based methods. A real example is analyzed, and simulations are used to check the main features of the heterogeneous models, especially the quality of estimation of abundance, survival, recruitment, and turnover. The two major advances in this article are the provision of realistic abundance estimates that take account of heterogenetiy of capture, and an appraisal of the amount of overestimation of survival arising from conditioning on the first capture when heterogeneity of survival is present.
© 2009, The International Biometric Society.