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Life tables in entomology: A discussion on tables’ parameters and the importance of raw data

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  • Luca Rossini
  • Mario Contarini
  • Stefano Speranza
  • Serhan Mermer
  • Vaughn Walton
  • Frédéric Francis
  • Emanuele Garone

Abstract

Life tables are one of the most common tools to describe the biology of insect species and their response to environmental conditions. Although the benefits of life tables are beyond question, we raise some doubts about the completeness of the information reported in life tables. To substantiate these doubts, we consider a case study (Corcyra cephalonica) for which the raw dataset is available. The data suggest that the Gaussian approximation of the development times which is implied by the average and standard error usually reported in life tables does not describe reliably the actual distribution of the data which can be misleading and hide interesting biological aspects. Furthermore, it can be risky when life table data are used to build models to predict the demographic changes of the population. The present study highlights this aspect by comparing the impulse response generated by the raw data and by its Gaussian approximation based on the mean and the standard error. The conclusions of this paper highlight: i) the importance of adding more information to life tables and, ii) the role of raw data to ensure the completeness of this kind of studies. Given the importance of raw data, we also point out the need for further developments of a standard in the community for sharing and analysing data of life tables experiments.

Suggested Citation

  • Luca Rossini & Mario Contarini & Stefano Speranza & Serhan Mermer & Vaughn Walton & Frédéric Francis & Emanuele Garone, 2024. "Life tables in entomology: A discussion on tables’ parameters and the importance of raw data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(3), pages 1-23, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0299598
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299598
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Volker Grimm & Alice S. A. Johnston & H.-H. Thulke & V. E. Forbes & P. Thorbek, 2020. "Three questions to ask before using model outputs for decision support," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-3, December.
    2. Rossini, Luca & Contarini, Mario & Severini, Maurizio & Speranza, Stefano, 2020. "Reformulation of the Distributed Delay Model to describe insect pest populations using count variables," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 436(C).
    3. Rossini, Luca & Bono Rosselló, Nicolás & Speranza, Stefano & Garone, Emanuele, 2021. "A general ODE-based model to describe the physiological age structure of ectotherms: Description and application to Drosophila suzukii," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 456(C).
    4. Xiaojuan Zhang & Yongxiu Zhou & Peihao Peng & Guoyan Wang, 2022. "A Novel Multimodal Species Distribution Model Fusing Remote Sensing Images and Environmental Features," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-12, October.
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