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Take beads of two different colours eg 450 red and 50 yellow. The yellow beads represent animls which have been caught and marked. They are then 'released' thoroughly mixed with the red beads. You then take a random sample of the mixed beads in such a way that you cannot see the colour when you select them eg from a paper bag or with your eyes closed. You connt the number of red beads and yellow beads (the recaptured individuals) and calculate the total number of beads (the population size) using this formula: total number of organisms = [number in first sample x number in second sample] / number of organisms recaptured You can experiment with different sample sizes to see how reliable the method is.

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15y ago

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