Deterministic models of living and fossil populations of animals

Abstract

The factors influencing the size-frequency distribution of living and dead populations of organisms are discussed. They include kind of recruitment (even recruitment, a broad wave of recruitment, a sharp wave of recruitment, and two waves of recruitment during the year); growth-rate (linear, high-to-low as in many invertebrates, and high-to-zero as in vertebrates) ; different coefficients of variation in the growth-rate; mortality rate (constant, increasing, and decreasing); and seasonal cessation of growth, with or without increased mortality.