1. Calculate the columns for the following life table:

x	ax	mx	lx	dx	qx	kx
0	50	0
1	10	0
2	9	0
3	6	0
4	3	100
5	0

(a) Calculate R₀ (calculate any other columns you need to do so) and state in words what it means.

(b) Calculate the generation time T (calculate any other columns you need to do so) and state in words what it means.

(c) Is population size increasing, decreasing, or staying the same size?  How do you know?

(d) Estimate the instantaneous per capita rate of population increase.  What assumption must be true for this estimate to be valid?

2. You follow a cohort of frogs through the stages of egg, tadpole, pre-reproductive froglet, and reproductive frog. You start out with 1000 eggs.  Of these, 500 become tadpoles.  250 of the tadpoles metamorphose into froglets, and 125 of those grow up to become reproductive adults (all adults eventually die).  Make a life table from these data; use life stage rather than age as your "x" values.  Include survivorship and three measures of mortality in the life table, and plot a survivorship curve.  At which life stage is the proportion dying the highest?  Does the survivorship curve appear to be type I, II, or III?

3. Consider three species with the following life table info:

Species 1

x	ax	mx	lx	dx	qx	kx
0	60	0
1	4	0
2	3	0
3	2	30
4	0	-

Species 2

x	ax	mx	lx	dx	qx	kx
0	60	0
1	50	0
2	45	1
3	40	1
4	0	-

Species 3

x	ax	mx	lx	dx	qx	kx
0	60	0
1	10	1
2	5	5
3	2	10
4	0	-

(a) For each species, calculate l_x, d_x, q_x, and k_x columns

(b) Draw a survivorship curve for each species; classify the survivorship curves as type I, II, or III based on the trend seen through most of the life
 
(c) Determine the length of a generation for each species.

(c) Estimate r for each population. Based on this r value, is each population increasing, decreasing, or staying the same?  Upon what assumption(s) is your estimate of r based?

(d) For species 2, determine whether reproduction apparently affects mortality by comparing the appropriate measure of age specific mortality between the combined pre-reproductive years (age classes 0 and 1) and the first year of reproduction (age class 2).

4.  Explain what each of the following means and how they differ from each other: m_x, l_x, d_x, q_x, k_x, a_x.  Which of these are obtained directly from field data, and how are they obtained?  Which are obtained from calculations based on the information that comes from field data?
 
5.  Compare and contrast the meanings and uses of k_x, d_x, and q_x.
 
6.  You are told that an endangered species you are hired to manage has a type II survivorship curve.  What does this tell you about the susceptibility of different aged individuals to mortality?
 
7.  Distinguish between r, R, and R₀.  How would you determine each from life table data?  What do different values of each indicate about population growth?

8.  What does T mean?  You can determine from R₀, without knowing T, whether a population is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same size.  What additional information can you get by knowing T?