Two-Sex Life Table, a Novel Approach in Studying Population

Life tables are a prime tool used in population ecology and pest management. Because of its inherent complexity, life table theory is often difficult for many scientists.  Life table data can be considered as actual “big data” and its analysis may be complex and quite difficult. Generation of a life table, however, is only the beginning, not the end.  Once generated, you will need to link your life table with accompanying predation, consumption, and/or parasitism rates to enable study of predator-prey (parasitoid-host) relationships and other practical application of life table theory in pest management, biological control, conservation studies, sustainable agriculture, etc. It is necessary to use computer simulation to integrate these big data to simulate and predict the growth of a pest/predator population and to estimate the damage/control efficiency of a crop/pest. I offer an intensive workshop entitled “Insect Life Tables, Predation Rate, Computer Simulation for Ecological Research, Biological Control and IPM” (5- to 10-day).   My lecture will enable an understand of the details of life table theory, provide practical instruction on how to analyze your life table and predation rate data, how to compare differences between treatments, how to simulate population growth, and how to predict the most advantageous time to implement control measures.  The differences between the traditional female age-specific life table and the age-stage, two-sex life table will be compared and discussed. Many examples of common errors that can be found in literature (past and present) will be discussed during the lecture.