Workshop: Calculating Life Table Response Experiments

Comparing populations to investigate how vital rates drive population dynamics: An exact method for calculating Life Table Response Experiments and an R package that does it for you.

Photo credit: Ryan Hodnett

Life Table Response Experiments (LTREs) are a valuable and commonly used tool for comparative studies of population dynamics. An LTRE, usually performed on a set of matrix population models, decomposes the difference or variance in population growth rate into the contributions from the vital rates (e.g., survival, fertility). LTRE analyses have been used to inform conservation and management decisions, by providing information about which life history stages or processes have contributed most to differences in population growth rate between different situations (for example, an undisturbed seabird population compared with one near a human settlement). LTRE methods were developed and popularized several decades ago by Hal Caswell and colleagues, and these classical methods are based on approximations. We have now developed methods to perform exact LTRE analyses using the fANOVA mathematical approach, with exact quantification of first-order terms and interaction effects.

Join Christina M Hernández in this workshop, to discuss the methods presented in their recently-published paper on exact Life Table Response Experiments (LTREs). Including a live demonstration of how to use their R package (available on CRAN), and answer questions from participants.

Participants should have some familiarity with structured population models and analysis in R, but no other prior knowledge will be assumed.

Calculating Life Table Response Experiments

Tuesday 27 June 2023

14:00 UK time / 09:00 Eastern time

Speaker: Christina M Hernández

REGISTER HERE