Seeing the Wood for the Trees: Detecting Density Dependence from Existing Life-Table Studies

(1) The analysis of sixty-three life-table studies involving fifty-eight insect species by Stiling (1988) is re-examined. In particular, we question his conclusion that the apparent absence of density-dependent processes in more than half of the studies meaningfully reflects the prevalence of such p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of animal ecology 1989-10, Vol.58 (3), p.883-892
Main Authors: Hassell, M. P., Latto, J., May, R. M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult insects
Animal and plant ecology
Animal ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Demecology
Ecology
Entomology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Insect ecology
Insect larvae
Insecta
Moths
Population density
Population dynamics
Population ecology
Protozoa. Invertebrata
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Summary:(1) The analysis of sixty-three life-table studies involving fifty-eight insect species by Stiling (1988) is re-examined. In particular, we question his conclusion that the apparent absence of density-dependent processes in more than half of the studies meaningfully reflects the prevalence of such processes in natural systems. (2) We show that the proportion of studies in which density dependence was detected by the original authors increases markedly with the number of generations available for analysis. This pattern is particularly clear from the twenty-eight life-tables available for univoltine insects. (3) That density dependence was detected in a large proportion of the studies lasting for more than a few generations is an encouraging result considering the inadequacies in current methods for detecting the different types of density dependence that can act on insect populations.
ISSN:0021-8790
1365-2656
DOI:10.2307/5130