Estimating the population size of subterranean termites by using a novel diffusion-based method

Abstract

We developed a population size estimation method to account for the unequal recapture probability of marked animals when their diffusion has not yet to reach the equilibrium in a two-dimensional closed system [S.-H. Lee, N.-Y. Su, Estimating the size of a closed population from a single mark–recapture regime by using a diffusion probability of marked individuals, Appl. Math. Comput. 182 (2006) 403–411]. In the present study, we transformed the method to one-dimensional form and applied it to the quasi one-dimensional artificial colony of the Formosan subterranean termite, Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki. On the whole, the population estimates were consistent with the known number of termites in the artificial colony. This result strongly supports that our method can be useful tool to estimate the closed population size during the diffusion of marked animals.