ABR: Developments in Matrix Population Analysis

该项目具有基础性和应用性两个方面。在过去的十年中，种群生态学最重要的基础研究进展之一是越来越多地使用了包含种群结构的建模技术，即个体按年龄段、大小段或发育阶段的分布。矩阵总体模型是这些技术中的一种，特别适合于种群间比较和随机分析。本文提出的研究将扩展比较分析的基本理论，以评估环境因素对人口水平的影响，并将矩阵人口模型与小人口增长和灭绝的随机模型明确地联系起来。这个项目的每个方面都对一个重要的应用问题做出了贡献。衡量种群对环境因素的反应对于评估污染物的影响、可能的气候变化、收获、生物防治和其他人为影响至关重要。该项目的结果将直接适用于此类研究。小种群灭绝问题是保护生物学中种群生存能力计算的关键问题。目前用于此类分析的模型忽略了种群结构，这可能对生存能力有重要影响。这一项目的成果将直接适用于这种情况。

This project has both basic and applied aspects. One of the most important basic research developments in population ecology in the last decade has been the increased use of modeling techniques that encompass population structure, I.E., the distribution of individuals into age classes, size classes or developmental stages. Matrix population models are one of these techniques, one particularly suited to inter-population comparisons and to stochastic analysis. The research proposed here will extend the basic theory for comparative analysis to permit evaluation of the population-level effects of environmental factors, and will explicitly connect matrix population models to stochastic models for the growth and extinction of small populations. Each aspect of this project contributes to an important applied problem. Measuring the responses of populations to environmental factors is essential for evaluating the impact of pollutants, possible climactic changes, harvesting, biological control and other anthropogenic effects. The results of this project will be directly applicable to such studies. The problem of extinction of small populations is crucial to population viability calculations in conservation biology. The models currently used for such analyses ignore population structure, which may have important effects on viability. The results of this project will be directly applicable to such situations.