[Babase] male disperse dates

Leah Gerber lgerber at duke.edu
Thu Mar 16 13:59:44 EST 2006


Hello,

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.

*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?

Thanks,
Leah


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