Innovative bootstrap-match technique for life table set up

We developed an innovative bootstrap-match technique for use in life table construction. This technique should be considered when any of the following four situations occur: 1) It is necessary to collect the immature and adult life table data separately due to obligatory diapause of one of the life stages. 2) It is necessary to collect the immature and adult life table data separately due to the difficulties in mating the adults under controlled laboratory conditions. 3) A large cohort is used for collecting immature data but a much smaller cohort is used for the adult data. 4) The life table data for the immatures were collected using individually reared insects while the adult data was obtained using group-reared insects. In order to demonstrate the applicability and reliability of this technique, we split twelve life tables of various insect species from previously published papers into two distinct components as if they were collected separately and then reunited them using the bootstrap-match technique. The population parameters of the bootstrap-match life tables were all highly consistent with the original life tables. We applied this technique to the Sunn pest, Eurygaster integriceps Puton, which has one generation per year and goes through an extended dormancy period averaging similar to 300 days (includes aestivation and overwintering). We demonstrated that ignoring the overwinter duration will result in unrealistic overestimation of population parameters. Conversely, bootstrap-match life tables that included the overwintering duration generated more realistic population parameters. Population projections using bootstrap-match life tables were also shown to generate realistic predictions of the population growth.