Figure 2

Life-cycle dynamics. Arrows represent transitions between life-cycle compartments described in Table 2 (YJ young juveniles, OJ old juveniles, G gestating females, NG non-gestating females, Fadult fattened when adult, YFbirth young fattened from birth, OFbirth old fattened from birth). The coefficients on the arrows are either transition rates or transition probabilities. A diamond in G indicates that when entering this state, it is determined whether the female will be culled after gestation or not (and the initial health-state of the future calf is defined). The other diamond indicates that after calving, the parity of a breeding female increases by one. See Tables 3, 4 and Additional file 1 for parameter definitions.