Quantifying the influence of measured and unmeasured individual differences on demography.

ABSTRACT: 1. Demographic rates can vary not only with measured individual characters like age, sex and mass but also with unmeasured individual variables like behaviour, genes and health. 2. Predictions from population models that include measured individual characteristics often differ from models that exclude them. Similarly, unmeasured individual differences have the potential to impact predictions from population models. However, unmeasured individual differences are rarely included in population models. 3. We construct stage- and age-structured models (where stage is mass) of a roe deer population, which are parameterized from statistical functions that either include, or ignore, unmeasured individual differences. 4. We found that mass and age structures substantially impacted model parameters

SUBMITTER: Plard F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5642278 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature