R package secrdesign

The R package secrdesign is a sister package to secr that provides tools for assessing and optimising study designs.

  • simulation
  • expected sample size (number of animals, number of recaptures)
  • approximate RSE 
  • optimal detector spacing

secrdesign 2.10.0 is the current version; recent changes are listed here.

Vignettes available from  this website:  

secrdesign-vignette.pdf 415K     << overview of simulation capability
secrdesign-tools.pdf 138K          << optimal spacing etc.
secrdesign-Enrm.pdf 123K          << expected sample size      

Interactive interface secrdesignapp 2.0

Many features of secrdesign are also available through an interactive web-based Shiny application via this link:

https://www.stats.otago.ac.nz/secrdesignapp/

The source code is available on GitHub, and it is simple to run it locally in your own machine. To do this, install packages shiny, shinyjs, sf and secrdesign, and paste the following code into your R session:

shiny::runGitHub("secrdesignapp", "MurrayEfford")

The interface is more responsive on a local machine, simulations may run faster, and the GitHub version is always the latest. 


Last updated: 02 December 2025

University of Otago DENSITY: software for spatially explicit capture–recapture