Question

Let's say that your neighborhood has a population of snails, which come out onto the sidewalk when the sprinklers come on, and the rest of the time they hide in the vegetation. If you catch 31, and mark them and, then, a week later, after they have had a chance to disperse into the population, you catch 26, and 13 have marks on them, what is the estimated size of the population? Report your answer rounded to the nearest whole number.

Answer 1

The estimated snail population size in the neighborhood, using the mark and recapture method, is 62 when rounding to the nearest whole number.

Step-by-step explanation:

The method used to estimate the snail population in this scenario is known as mark and recapture, a common technique in ecology for estimating an animal's population size. To calculate the estimated population size, we use the proportion of marked individuals in the second sample to estimate the total population. We apply the formula:

N = (number of marked first catch × total number of second catch) / number of marked second catch

Given:

Number of marked first catch = 31

Total number of second catch = 26

Number of marked second catch = 13

Substitute the values into the formula:

N = (31 × 26) / 13

N = 806 / 13

N = 62

Rounding to the nearest whole number, the estimated snail population size is 62.