[Babase] male disperse dates

Karl O. Pinc kop at meme.com
Thu Mar 16 15:56:07 EST 2006


On 03/16/2006 02:06:34 PM, Susan Alberts wrote:

>> There are a couple of types of conversion errors that come up with  
>> the matured, ranked and disperse dates for males. There are only 7  
>> errors in total but I think we should make the rules very clear.
>> 
>> *1*. Error if there is a disperse date but no matured date
>> 
>> There are 3 individuals who have a disperse date but no matured  
>> date. Susan's documentation for "on" and "by" dates states:
>> 
>>   1. *The male is a natal male from one of our study groups but he
>>      disperses before attaining one or both markers, and attains one  
>> or
>>      both markers in a non-study group.* We follow these rules:
>>         1. If he emigrates before testicular enlargement and is known
>>            to be living in a non-study group and we have no other
>>            information about him, we assign him a matured "BY" date
>>            that is is 6 years 8 months afer his birth. Again, the  
>> point
>>            here is to allow us to (somewhat coarsely) designate the
>>            subadults in the population at any given time. This also
>>            provides a "BY" date if comes back into a study group  
>> after
>>            he has attained the marker.
>> 
>> Is this a rule that has been followed in the past? If so, then we  
>> should estimate matured dates for PES, HIC, and SEB using this  
>> method. All 3 are natal males.
> 
> 
> I am not sure that this rule has been followed in the past. I think  
> that we might need to abandon it. The thing is that a young male  
> really can disperse without achieving matured or ranked (although  
> this is not common) and in those cases we may never know his matured  
> or ranked if we never see him again. It would not be accurate to give  
> him a ranked and mature BY date on the date he disperses, but it  
> would be aritificial to make one up several years later, especially  
> if we never see him again. In short, I think that dispersed is a  
> different kind of maturational marker than ranked or matured. The  
> latter two are inevitable physical processes that occur in a certain  
> sequence, the former is not. We probably shouldn't have this  
> restriction on it.

Now that you mention it, we had this discussion and came to
the conclusion you reach now.  No restriction on dispersal date.
This is how the new Babase documentation currently reads.


> 
>> 
>> *2*. Error if there is a ranked date but no matured date
>> 
>> There are 4 individuals with a ranked by date but no matured date.  
>> All of these are recent ranked "by" dates. Susan's documentation  
>> states that:
>> 
>>         1. If the male enters as an adult (field notes indicate  
>> adult)
>>            OR he immediately starts winning fights with other adult
>>            males, he gets a "BY" date for RANKED but /not/ for  
>> MATURED
>>            - he gets no entry at all in the MATUREDATES table.
>> 
>> I think, at least recently, we were giving individuals a matured by  
>> date that was the same as the ranked by date. However, Karl's  
>> documentation states that there must be a matured date if there is a  
>> ranked date. Which rule do we want?
>> 
> 
> Leah, i believe you are right that the rule in my documentation  
> sheet, as originally written, is different from what we decided and  
> are doing now. I think that if there is a ranked date there must be a  
> matured date, as stated in the rule in Karl's documentation.  We want  
> to retain karls' rule. If the ranked is a by date, the matured date  
> can be the same. If the ranked is an on date, the mature date can be  
> a by date but equal to the ranked date.

To confirm, in these last to sentences "can" means "can but does not
have to be".  In other words, there's nothing we want to write in
stone in the database rules.



Karl <kop at meme.com>
Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
                  -- Robert A. Heinlein



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