A new Bayesian approach to incorporating the effects of dormancy (more than seasonal) into population dynamics models:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2501394122

It would be interesting to see if this can be applied to anadromous fish that spend variable numbers of years at sea, or to species with other types of refugia.

#Science #PopulationModeling #Bayes

#NewPapers #Paleontology #Dinosaurs #PopulationModeling

Eva M. Griebeler (2023)
Vital statistics, absolute abundance and preservation rate of Tyrannosaurus rex
Palaeontology 66(2): e12648
doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.12648
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pala.12648

This week's maxim for my #demography / #PopulationModeling students:

Do you have a question about a duration / state of being, but data on rates / a set of transitions? That's how you know you have a life table situation

If your answer is, "No, I have a question abt the duration of an experience but I don't have data on the transitions, just a cross-section of the experience," then, surprise: you have a "life table plus extra assumptions" situation

I need to work on the pithiness of my maxims

Thinking about doing something new in my #PopulationModeling grad class:

We're covering decomposition methods & I recently got reviews back on a paper where R1 didn't understand the decomposition & R2 didn't like it

So I'm gonna give students the relevant portion of manuscript & reviews & have them decide: What should I do? Should I keep the decomposition -- then how should I answer reviewers? Should I ditch it -- then how should I analyze these questions instead?

#Teaching advice welcome!

Teaching the first session of my graduate #PopulationModeling class today, and I see that my "debrief" notes from last time consist of this solitary thought:

"Demographers are often interested in the consequences of things that other social scientists want to find the causes of"

...Uh, ok.

#demography #PopMastodon

Demographers:

I'm reprepping my Population Modeling (demographic techniques) grad class & would love inspiration as I cycle out the articles I'm bored with

What's an empirical application of demographic methods (any demographic methods!) that you love thinking about?

Bonus if it's an unusual substantive focus for demography

(Especially please share your favorite use of demographic decomposition techniques, bc I'm definitely tired of that week!)

#demography #PopMastodon #PopulationModeling