estimated posteriors in JAGS by levels of a factor - jags

Question

I am running an N-mixture model in JAGS, trying to see if posterior predicted values of N are higher in one habitat than another. I am wondering how to obtain posterior probabilities of estimated population size for each habitat individually after running the model. So, e.g., if I wanted to sum across all sites, I'd put
totalN<-sum(N[]) in the JAGS model and identify "totalN" as one of my parameters. If I have 2 habitat levels over which to sum N, do I need a for loop or is there another way to define it?
Below is my model so far...
model{
priors
#abundance
beta0 ~ dnorm(0, 0.001) # log(lambda) intercept
beta1 ~ dnorm(0, 0.001) #this is my regression parameter for habitat
tau.T ~ dgamma(0.001, 0.001) #this is for random effect of transect
# detection
alpha.p ~ dgamma(0.01, 0.01)
beta.p ~ dgamma (0.01, 0.01)
Poisson model for abundance
for (i in 1:nsite){
loglam[i] <- beta1*habitat[i] + ranef[transect[i]]
loglam.lim[i] <- min(250, max(-250, loglam[i])) # 'Stabilize' log
lam[i] <- exp(loglam.lim[i])
N[i] ~ dpois(lam[i])
}
for (i in 1:14){
ranef[i]~dnorm(beta0,tau.T)
}
Measurement error model
for (i in 1:nsite){
for (j in 1:nrep){
y[i,j] ~ dbin(p[i,j], N[i])
p[i,j] ~ dbeta(alpha.p,beta.p) #detection probability follows a beta distribution
}
}
posterior predictions
Nperhabitat<-sum(N[habitat]) #this doesn't work, only estimates a single set of posterior densities for N
#and get a derived detection probability
}

Answer 1

I am going to assume here that habitat is a binary vector. I would add two additional vectors to your data that define which elements in habitat are 1 and which are 0. From there you can index N with those two vectors.
# done in R and added to the data list supplied to JAGS
hab_1 <- which(habitat == 1)
hab_0 <- which(habitat == 0)
# add to data list
data_list <- list(..., hab_1 = hab_1, hab_0 = hab_0)
Then, inside the JAGS model you would just add:
N_habitat_1 <- sum(N[hab_1])
N_habitat_0 <- sum(N[hab_0])
This is effectively telling JAGS to provide the total abundance per habitat type. If you have way more sites of one habitat vs another this abundance may hide that the density of individuals could actually be less. Thus, you may want to divide this abundance by the total number of sites of each habitat type:
dens_habitat_1 <- sum(N[hab_1]) / sum(habitat)
dens_habitat_0 <- sum(N[hab_0]) / sum(1 - habitat)
This is, of course, assuming that habitat is binary.