Abstract
This article describes the sPop packages implementing the deterministic and stochastic versions of an age-structured discrete-time population dynamics model. The packages enable mechanistic modelling of a population by monitoring the age and development stage of each individual. Survival and development are included as the main effectors and they progress at a user-defined pace: follow a fixed-rate, delay for a given time, or progress at an age-dependent manner. The model is implemented in C, Python, and R with a uniform design to ease usage and facilitate adoption. Early versions of the model were previously employed for investigating climate-driven population dynamics of the tiger mosquito and the chikungunya disease spread by this vector. The sPop packages presented in this article enable the use of the model in a range of applications extending from vector-borne diseases towards any age-structured population including plant and animal populations, microbial dynamics, host-pathogen interactions, infectious diseases, and other time-delayed epidemiological processes.
Highlights
The age-structured population dynamics model Populations become heterogenous as individuals age and their physical/biochemical characteristics change
Intermittent development stages are capable of representing age-structured populations to a certain extent, a large number of age classes are required for accuracy
Same principles apply for the survival process, where we provide the mean and the standard deviation of the gamma-distribution for each age-development group as calculated by the death function
Summary
Paragraph 1 - Suggest editing the first sentence to say that populations are heterogeneous, and one of the ways that they are heterogeneous is because age can cause differences among individuals. I believe that the analogy helps readers better conceptualise these processes and apply them to their work In this version of the manuscript, I renamed the method as "perturb", elaborated the discussion on its intended use, and provided a simple example to demonstrate how it can be used to model migration. ○ Use Cases: Age-structured host-parasite interactions - clarifying what Hastings was modelling originally would be helpful - title of reference says predators while in the text it says parasites? While I have not had much experience with age-structured population dynamic models, I found it straight forward to follow the concept of the underlying model described in the manuscript Overall this manuscript is well written and provides a hands-on guide to scientists to implement the discussed methods into their existing workflow I confirm that I have read this submission and believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
