After a short exchange with the original questioner, I wrote the following function to calculate the elasticities of lower level variables in population transition matrices (Leslie matrices etc.) Perhaps it will be of use to others. There is no error-checking, so use with care. Users should consult Caswell (2001) for reference.
Cheers, Simon. # example values to construct leslie matrix vl <- list(f1=1, f2=4, s0=.6, s=.4, v=.9, sigma=.5) # Expressions for each matrix element F1 <- expression(sigma*s0*f1) F2 <- expression(sigma*s0*f2) S <- expression(s) V <- expression(v) el <- c(F1, F2, S, V) elas.var <- function (elements, varlist) { # elements should be a vector of expressions corresponding to the elements # of the leslie matrix, in terms of the variables in varlist require(demogR) res <- vector("list", length(varlist)) deriv.funcs <- sapply(elements, deriv, namevec=names(varlist), function.arg=TRUE) devs <- lapply(deriv.funcs, function (x) do.call(x, varlist)) leslie.mat <- matrix(as.numeric(devs), nrow=sqrt(length(elements)), byrow=TRUE) eig <- eigen.analysis(leslie.mat) for (i in 1:length(varlist)) { derivs <- matrix( as.numeric(lapply(devs, function (x) [EMAIL PROTECTED])), nrow=sqrt(length(elements)), byrow=TRUE) res[[i]] <- varlist[[i]]/eig$lambda1*sum(derivs*eig$sensitivities) names(res)[i] <- names(varlist)[i] } res } # example output > elas.var(el, vl) $f1 [1] 0.06671376 $f2 [1] 0.2346064 $s0 [1] 0.3013201 $s [1] 0.2346064 $v [1] 0.4640735 $sigma [1] 0.3013201 Simon Blomberg, BSc (Hons), PhD, MAppStat. Lecturer and Consultant Statistician Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences The University of Queensland St. Lucia Queensland 4072 Australia T: +61 7 3365 2506 email: S.Blomberg1_at_uq.edu.au Policies: 1. I will NOT analyse your data for you. 2. Your deadline is your problem. The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data. - John Tukey. [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.