Spatial Population Model User Manual, SPM v1.1-2012-09-06 (rev. 4806)

SPM (Spatial Population Model) is a generalised spatially explicit age-structured population dynamics and movement model. SPM can model population dynamics and movement parameters for an age-structured population using a range of observations, including tagging, relative abundance, and age frequency data. SPM implements an age-structured population within an arbitrary shaped spatial structure, which can have user defined categories (e.g., immature, mature, male, female, etc.), and age range. This manual describes how to use SPM, including how to run SPM, how to set up an input configuration file. Further, we describe the population dynamics and estimation methods, and describe how to specify and interpret output.