Invariance of demographic parameters using total or viable eggs. Response to Chi, Mou, Lee and Smith

HERNÁNDEZ SUÁREZ, C. M.; MEDONE, P.; JORGE RABINOVICH

JOURNAL OF APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2016 vol. 140 p. 146 - 153

0931-2048

In our article, ?Invariance of demographic parametersusing total or viable eggs? by C. Hernandez-Suarez, P.Medone and J. E. Rabinovich (this issue), we providethree different mathematical proofs that Rowill yieldthe same result using total or viable eggs, as long asthe participating stages are defined accordingly. Thus,Rocan be defined as the ?number of eggs that will replaceeach initial egg of a cohort in the period of one generation?,the ?number of viable eggs that will replace each viable eggin the period of one generation?, the ? number of adults thatwill replace each adult in the period of one generation? andso on.Regrettably, Chi, Mou, Lee and Smith (CMLS)?sresponse to our article is merely tautological. In thelast paragraph they mention: ?Based on the above mathe-matical proof...?, however, there is no mathematicalproof in their arguments, which even lacks of a singleequation. They merely refer to equations in their ori-ginal article (Mou et al. 2015), some of which havebeen criticized in our article, so no new formal mathe-matical evidence has been provided