The relative importance to population increase of fluctuations in mortality,fecundity and the time variables of the reproductive schedule

Summary Previous authors have used simple models to investigate the relative importance to population increase of variations in the total and age-specific reproductive rates. But while acknowledging that the latter were the product of the age specific birth and death rates, they have used their models only to investigate changes in total or age-specific birth rates and have not been concerned with variations in death rates. This paper extends the use of Lewontin's (1965) model, to a wide range of values of r, the exponential rate of population increase. It shows how the relative importance of changes in certain life-history features can change with r and be reversed when r is near to zero. It is also shown that variations in mortality rate are not necessarily best expressed in analogous terms to variations in birth rate. If more suitable terms are used it is seen that changes in mortality rate can be of varying importance depending on the existing mortality rate. They can be overwhelmingly important when the mortality rate is high.