AN EASY AND CONVENIENT WAY TO ANALYZE PHYLLOXERA POPULATION GROWTH DATA

The intrinsic rate of natural increase (r_m) is a common measurement in entomology to describe and evaluate the growth and adaptation of an arthropod population to certain environmental conditions.
A simple and convenient way of calculating the r_m was provided by Wyatt and White in 1977, which became quite popular among entomologists, especially when assessing life-table parameters for insects with a long life cycle, such as the grape phylloxera, Daktulosphaira vitifoliae Fitch.
As a population parameter, r_m lacks any variance.
Because of this, a valid statistical comparison of r_m’s for different populations is not straightforward and thus calculations, when performed, often result in statistical misconceptions.
In the present paper, we briefly discuss the drawbacks of the two most used calculations, and present an easy way to implement a consistent method for the comparison of r_m’s.
The approach is demonstrated and discussed using a phylloxera data set.

V International Phylloxera Symposium

J.-P. Lawo, R. Kolberg, A. Forneck, N.C. Lawo

intrinsic rate of natural increase, statistics, bootstrap, BCa, jackknife, Daktulosphaira vitifoliae

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2011.904.1