PARENT SESSION
Oral Session # 16: Ecological Modeling I.
Presiding: C Ray
Tuesday, August 5. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, SITCC Meeting Room 102.

Power analysis for matrix transition models.

Fox, Gordon^*,1, Tingiris, Pam¹, Kendall, Bruce², ¹ University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA² University of Califonia, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

ABSTRACT- Matrix transition models are a key tool for population biologists seeking to make inferences about population growth rates and their components, and about how changes in vital rates may affect growth rates and future population sizes. As a result, these models play a large role in subdisciplines ranging from studies of natural selection to population viability analyses. We have conducted numerical simulation studies of how sample sizes and the number of censuses in a study affect a number of quantities including the estimates of the matrices themselves, the growth rates , eigenvectors, and senstitivities and elasticities. Necessary sample sizes and numbers of censuses vary with the type of life history (structure of the matrix). Transition probabilities near zero require large sample sizes but can strongly affect estimates of many matrix quantities. These power analyses are likely to be useful in guiding study design; our code for conducting them will be made publically available.

Key words: Power analysis, Population ecology, Matrix models, Conservation biology