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

Rossini, L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2558-7111, Contarini, M., Speranza, S., Mermer, S., Walton, V., Francis, F. and Garone, E. (2024) Life tables in entomology: a discussion on tables’ parameters and the importance of raw data. PLoS ONE, 19 (3). e0299598. ISSN 1932-6203 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299598

Abstract/Summary

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.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/130076
Identification Number/DOI	10.1371/journal.pone.0299598
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	No Reading authors. Back catalogue items Life Sciences > School of Agriculture, Policy and Development > Department of Crop Science
Publisher	Public Library of Science
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