The life cycle as a Markov chain. This is more powerful than the z-transformed life cycle graphs. The matrix elements give the mean time spent in each stage. Thus a basking shark spends, on average 8.60 years as an immature and 1.56 years as a reproductive adult. A mature adult, in contrast, spends an average of 9-10 years in that stage.
R projects the population from one generation to the next.
Ro is the dominant eigenvalue of R in the most general case with different types of offspring. A juvenile basking shark can expected to produce 1.41 female offspring during its life. I have not yet figured out how to calculate Abar using matrix notation. The growth and structure of human populations. It is the time T required for the population to increase by a factor of R o .