Aging in the Wild

James R. Carey, University of California, Davis
Nikos Papadopoulos, University of Thessaly
Pablo Liedo, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR)
Hans Muller, University of California, Davis
Jane-Ling Wang, University of California, Davis

The objectives of this paper are to: (1)extend the ‘captive cohort life table’ (Mueller et al. 2004) which, with certain simplifying assumptions (stable, stationary), can be used to estimate survival and age structure in wild populations using the distribution of deaths of a randomly-selected group of individuals of unknown age; (2) describe a new model that can be used to estimate the age structure of any wild population based on remaining birth and/or death rates of captive individuals of unknown age if: i) age-specific vital rates are known, and ii) the probability of capturing individuals is not age-biased; (3) bring these models to bear on age-specific data derived from 1,000 wild-captured fruit flies from California, Greece and Mexico maintained in the laboratory post-capture; and (4) discuss the implications of the findings for biodemography in particular and for demography in general including the use of the basic concepts in demographic anthropology.