Life tables and demographic statistics of Russian wheat aphid (Hemiptera: Aphididae) reared at different temperatures and on different host plant growth stages

Laboratory experiments were used to investigate the influences of 25 combinations of temperature and barley plant growth stage (5 x 5 factorial combination of temperature and barley plant growth stage) on the development, survival and reproduction of the Russian wheat aphid (RWA), Diuraphis noxia (Mordvilko). For each of the 25 treatments, the developmental time and nymphal production of 72 RWA individuals were recorded (1800 RWA in total) throughout their entire lifetime. The collected data were used for analyzing demography, modelling phenology, and simulating population growth of RWA. In this paper, the results of demographic analyses arc reported. Specifically, for each treatment, cohort life tables, reproductive heterogeneity tables (parity and birth intervals), and reproductive schedule tables were constructed, and demographic parameters such as intrinsic rate of increase, life-span, fecundity, life table entropy, etc. calculated. Based on these analyses, the most important summary demographic statistics arc reported. Using the intrinsic rate of increase (r(m)) as all example, a procedure is demonstrated that builds a dynamic r(m) model by applying the Best Subset Regression approach. A more comprehensive (considering reproductive heterogeneity and schedule tables) yet concise (comprising dynamic r(m) models) demographic model than that based on standard life table analysis alone is presented.