Original Research ArticleStatistical inference in two-sex biological populations with reproduction in a random environment

•The demographic dynamics of biological populations is described.•Several inferential problems of ecological interest are studied.•Bayes estimators for the offspring distributions are provided.•Optimal credibility sets for the offspring parameters are determined.•The application to Pacific salmon populations is considered.

We mathematically model the demographic dynamics of biological populations with sexual reproduction where mating and reproduction can be influenced by the current number of couples in the population. We assume the more realistic situation where the reproduction process occurs in a non-predictable environment. We also consider the immigration/emigration of couples in the population. In this work, we continue the research about the class of two-sex models introduced in Ma et al. (2016) where the offspring distribution changes over time in a random environment influenced by the number of progenitor couples in the population. By considering the more general non-parametric statistical setting, we study several inferential problems of ecological interest. As illustration, we present an application to Pacific salmon populations.