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Study of Life Table From Hypothetical Real Data

The document discusses studying population ecology through constructing life tables and plotting survivorship curves. It provides examples of hypothetical and real life table data for various animal populations. Life tables allow predicting future population growth/decline by providing age-specific survival, mortality, and fertility rates. Survivorship curves are a visual tool created from life table data to illustrate patterns of survival across age classes. The document demonstrates calculating parameters from life tables and constructing survivorship curves using sample data sets.

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Ray Mrinal
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10K views

Study of Life Table From Hypothetical Real Data

The document discusses studying population ecology through constructing life tables and plotting survivorship curves. It provides examples of hypothetical and real life table data for various animal populations. Life tables allow predicting future population growth/decline by providing age-specific survival, mortality, and fertility rates. Survivorship curves are a visual tool created from life table data to illustrate patterns of survival across age classes. The document demonstrates calculating parameters from life tables and constructing survivorship curves using sample data sets.

Uploaded by

Ray Mrinal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Study of life tables and plotting of survivorship curves of different types from

the hypothetical/real data provided


1. Introduction

A population can be defined as a localized group of individuals belonging to the same species.
Sometimes, few populations shows distinct boundaries like population of White-footed Mouse in
Sandford Natural Area, however, in other cases, population did not have demarcated boundaries,
therefore it is randomly set by the convenience of the investigators, for instance, Eastern
Chipmunks around Holmes Hall. The next step after defining the boundaries is the determination
of a population size. It can be done by either counting total number of individuals from a given
smaller sample area which can be extrapolated to the set boundaries or it can be done by capture-
recapture method.

The population biology is mainly concerned with the factors which can alter the population size
with time. The important factors are mainly natality, mortality, growth of individual and
reproductive success. The strength of population ecology lies in its quantitative nature. One
technique used to study population ecology is the construction of life tables.

A life table can be explained as an age specific summary of mortality rates that is operating on a
cohort of individuals. A cohort may consist of either the entire population or it may include only
the males or females individuals that were born in a given period of time.

In this laboratory life tables were studied from the hypothetical or real data provided. These
tables allow for a prediction of future population growth/decline and were then used to create
survivorship curves; a visual tool for interpreting natality and mortality in populations, and often
utilized for the management of endangered species (UVM, 2013).

2. Materials

Life Table Data, Graph Paper

3. Methods: Study of Life table and plotting of survivorship curves:

From the provided data, we calculate a variety of other quantities, including age-specific rates of
survival, mortality, fecundity, survivorship curves, life expectancy, generation time, net
reproductive rate, and intrinsic rate of increase. The quantities we calculate will depend on our
goals in constructing the life table.

Rather than presenting all the quantities that may appear in a life table, two applications of life
tables were presented. First, the life tables that were built used to illustrate the three classic
survivorship curves. These curves are a powerful visual tool for understanding the patterns of
survivorship and mortality in populations. Second, the life table analyzed to predict the future
growth or decline of the population.
4. Life table: Hypothetical Data
4.1. Problem 1: The survivorship schedule of a hypothetical population is given in the
table below. Find the mortality and life expectancy of the population.

x 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Sx 1000 700 500 300 100 50 20 10

4.1.1. Observation and Calculations: The table for calculating age specific life
expectancy was set up as below:

x Sx dx lx Lx Tx ex

1 1000

2 700

3 500

4 300

5 100

6 50

7 20

8 10

4.1.2. Inference:
4.2. Problem 2: Find the mortality and life expectancy from the given data.

x 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Sx 1000 800 700 550 400 300 50 30 10

4.2.1. Observation and Calculations:

4.2.2. Inference:

4.3. Problem 3: The age specific survival rate and age specific natality rate (offspring
per female aged x) is shown in the following table. Find the Gross Reproductive Rate (GRR),
Net Re Reproductive Rate (NRR) and Generation Time (GT) of the population.

Age 0 1 2 3 4

Age Specific
1 0.80 0.4 0.1 0
Survival

Age Specific
0 2 3 1 0
Fertility

4.3.1. Observation and Calculations:

4.3.2. Inference:
5. Life table: Real data
5.1. Problem 1: Olaus Murie (1944) recorded the age at death of 608 Dall mountain
sheep (Ovis dalli) in Denali National Park, Alaska as shown in the following table. Find the Age
specific life expectancy of the species from the data provided

5.1.1. Observation and Calculations:

The data provided shows the number dying in different age intervals out of the total number of
608 deaths recorded in Dall Mountain Sheep. At first, standardization of the number dying in
each age interval out of 1000 born (dx) were done and then the number of surviving sheep at
the beginning of each age interval out of 1000 born (lx) was standardized. With dx and lx data
in place other parameters of the life table was set up to calculate the Age specific life expectancy
of the species from the data provided.

Age Number Number Number of Lx Tx ex


interval dying dying in surviving
at the
each age
beginning
interval
during age of each age
(years) (x) out of
interval interval
1000 born
out of 1000
(dx)
born (lx)

0-1 199 1000

1-2 12

2-3 13

3-4 12

4-5 30

5-6 46

6-7 48

7-8 69

8-9 132

9-10 187

10-11 156

11-12 90

12-13 3

13-14 3
5.1.2. Inference:

6. Plotting of survivorship
6.1. Problem 1:The total number of Dall Mountain Sheep surviving to different ages is
given in the table below. Use the data to plot survivorship curve for the species.

6.1.1. Observation and Calculations:


The data provided shows the number surviving in different age intervals out of the total number
of 608 deaths recorded in Dall Mountain Sheep. At first, standardization of the survivorship
data was done by finding the number of surviving sheep at the beginning of each age
interval out of 1000 born (lx). For this the survivorship value of each age interval was divided
by 608 and multiplied the result by 1000. The log 10 (lx) values were calculated from the lx values
standardized at 1000 born to plot the survivorship curve on a regular graph paper.

Age interval (years) log10 (lx)


Survivorship lx
(x)

0-1 608

1-2 487

2-3 480

3-4 472

4-5 465

5-6 447

6-7 419

7-8 390

8-9 348

9-10 268

10-11 154

11-12 59

12-13 4
13-14 2

6.1.2. Inference:

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