Search results for " statistics"
showing 10 items of 1891 documents
The role of noise on the steady state distributions of phytoplankton populations
2016
The spatio-temporal behaviour of total chlorophyll concentration is investigated in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea by using a stochastic approach. The study is based on a reaction-diffusion-taxis model, which is used to analyse the dynamics of five phytoplankton groups, responsible for about 80% of the total chlorophyll a inside the euphotic zone of the water column. The analysis is performed by considering: (i) the intraspecific competition of the phytoplanktonic groups for limiting factors, i.e. light intensity and nutrient concentration, (ii) the seasonal changes of environmental variables, and (iii) the random fluctuations of the components of the velocity field and temperature. Speci…
Spatio-Temporal model structures with shared components for semi-continuous species distribution modelling
2017
Abstract Understanding the spatio-temporal dynamism and environmental relationships of species is essential for the conservation of natural resources. Many spatio-temporally sampled processes result in continuous positive [ 0 , ∞ ) abundance datasets that have many zero values observed in areas that lie outside their optimum niche. In such cases the most common option is to use two-part or hurdle models, which fit independent models and consequently independent environmental effects to occurrence and conditional-to-presence abundance. This may be correct in some cases, but not as much in others where the detection probability is related to the abundance. The aim of this work is to infer the…
Sexing birds using discriminant function analysis: a critical appraisal.
2011
9 pages; International audience; Discriminant function analysis (DFA) based on morphological measurements is a quick, inexpensive, and efficient method for sex determination in field studies on cryptically monomorphic bird species. However, behind the apparent standardization and relative simplicity of DFA lie subtle differences and pitfalls that have been neglected in some studies. Most of these concerns directly affect assessment of the discriminant performance, a parameter of crucial importance in practice because it provides a measure of the quality of an equation that may be used in later field studies. Using results from 141 published studies and simulations based on a large data set …
An Algebraic Derivation of Chao’s Estimator of the Number of Species in a Community Highlights the Condition Allowing Chao to Deliver Centered Estima…
2014
Anne Chao proposed a very popular, nonparametric estimator of the species richness of a community, on the basis of a limited size sampling of this community. This expression was originally derived on a statistical basis as a lower-bound estimate of the number of missing species in the sample and provides accordingly a minimal threshold for the estimation of the total species richness of the community. Hereafter, we propose an alternative, algebraic derivation of Chao’s estimator, demonstrating thereby that Chao’s formulation may also provide centered estimates (and not only a lower bound threshold), provided that the sampled communities satisfy a specific type of SAD (species abundance dist…
Estimation of local extinction rates when species detectability covaries with extinction probability: is it a problem ?
2006
Estimating the rate of change of the composition of communities is of direct interest to address many fundamental and applied questions in ecology. One methodological problem is that it is hard to detect all the species present in a community. Nichols et al. presented an estimator of the local extinction rate that takes into account species probability of detection, but little information is available on its performance. However, they predicted that if a covariance between species detection probability and local extinction rate exists in a community, the estimator of local extinction rate complement would be positively biased. Here, we show, using simulations over a wide range of parameters…
Towards sustainable and multifunctional agriculture in farmland landscapes: Lessons from the integrative approach of a French LTSER platform
2018
International audience; Agriculture is currently facing unprecedented challenges: ensuring food, fiber and energy production in the face of global change, maintaining the economic performance of farmers and preserving natural resources such as biodiversity and associated key ecosystem services for sustainable agriculture. Addressing these challenges requires innovative landscape scale farming systems that account for changing economic and environmental targets. These novel agricultural systems need to be recognized, accepted and promoted by all stakeholders, including local residents, and supported by public policies. Agroecosystems should be considered as socio-ecological systems and alter…
Incidence and control of black spot syndrome of tiger nut
2017
Tiger nut (Cyperus esculentum) is a very profitable crop in Valencia, Spain, but in the last years, part of the harvested tubers presents black spots in the skin making them unmarketable. Surveys performed in two consecutive years showed that about 10% of the tubers were severely affected by the black spot syndrome whose aetiology is unknown. Disease control procedures based on selection of tubers used as seed (seed tubers) or treatment with hot-water and/or chemicals were assayed in greenhouse. These assays showed that that this syndrome had a negative impact on the germination rate, tuber size and yield. Selection of asymptomatic seed tubers reduced drastically the incidence of the black …
Fishery-dependent and -independent data lead to consistent estimations of essential habitats
2016
AbstractSpecies mapping is an essential tool for conservation programmes as it provides clear pictures of the distribution of marine resources. However, in fishery ecology, the amount of objective scientific information is limited and data may not always be directly comparable. Information about the distribution of marine species can be derived from two main sources: fishery-independent data (scientific surveys at sea) and fishery-dependent data (collection and sampling by observers in commercial vessels). The aim of this paper is to compare whether these two different sources produce similar, complementary, or different results. We compare them in the specific context of identifying the Es…
How to reach optimal estimates of confidence intervals in microscopic counting of phytoplankton?
2021
Abstract Present practices in the microscopic counting of phytoplankton to estimate the reliability of results rely on the assumption of a random distribution of taxa in sample preparations. In contrast to that and in agreement with the literature, we show that aggregated distribution is common and can lead to over-optimistic confidence intervals, if estimated according to the shortcut procedure of Lund et al. based on the number of counted cells. We found a good linear correlation between the distribution independent confidence intervals for medians and those for parametric statistics so that 95% confidence intervals can be approximated by using a correction factor of 1.4. Instead, the rec…
A Novel Intelligent Technique of Invariant Statistical Embedding and Averaging via Pivotal Quantities for Optimization or Improvement of Statistical …
2020
In the present paper, for intelligent constructing efficient (optimal, uniformly non-dominated, unbiased, improved) statistical decisions under parametric uncertainty, a new technique of invariant embedding of sample statistics in a decision criterion and averaging this criterion over pivots’ probability distributions is proposed. This technique represents a simple and computationally attractive statistical method based on the constructive use of the invariance principle in mathematical statistics. Unlike the Bayesian approach, the technique of invariant statistical embedding and averaging via pivotal quantities (ISE&APQ) is independent of the choice of priors and represents a novelty i…