Stage duration distributions in matrix population models.

ABSTRACT: Matrix population models are a standard tool for studying stage-structured populations, but they are not flexible in describing stage duration distributions. This study describes a method for modeling various such distributions in matrix models. The method uses a mixture of two negative binomial distributions (parametrized using a maximum likelihood method) to approximate a target (true) distribution. To examine the performance of the method, populations consisting of two life stages (juvenile and adult) were considered. The juvenile duration distribution followed a gamma distribution, lognormal distribution, or zero-truncated (over-dispersed) Poisson distribution, each of which represents a target distribution to be approximated by a mixture distribution. The true population growth rate b

SUBMITTER: Okuyama T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6144974 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature