Kyle Miller Hesed William A. Link 2015 <p><span>Knowledge of organisms’ growth rates and ages at sexual maturity is important for conservation efforts and a wide variety of studies in ecology and evolutionary biology. However, these life history parameters may be difficult to obtain from natural populations: individuals encountered may be of unknown age, information on age at sexual maturity may be uncertain and interval-censored, and growth data may include both individual heterogeneity and measurement errors. We analyzed mark–recapture data for Red-backed Salamanders (</span><i class="EmphasisTypeItalic ">Plethodon cinereus</i><span>) to compare sex-specific growth rates and ages at sexual maturity. Aging of individuals was made possible by the use of a von Bertalanffy model of growth, complemented with models for interval-censored and imperfect observations at sexual maturation. Individual heterogeneity in growth was modeled through the use of Gamma processes. Our analysis indicates that female </span><i class="EmphasisTypeItalic ">P. cinereus</i><span> mature earlier and grow more quickly than males, growing to nearly identical asymptotic size distributions as males.</span></p> application/pdf 10.1007/s13253-015-0211-8 en American Statistical Association: International Biometric Society Individual heterogeneity in growth and age at sexual maturity: A gamma process analysis of capture–mark–recapture data article