Search results for "Ecological model"
showing 10 items of 322 documents
Analyzing environmental‐trait interactions in ecological communities with fourth‐corner latent variable models
2021
In ecological community studies it is often of interest to study the effect of species related trait variables on abundances or presence-absences. Specifically, the interest may lay in the interactions between environmental and trait variables. An increasingly popular approach for studying such interactions is to use the so-called fourth-corner model, which explicitly posits a regression model where the mean response of each species is a function of interactions between covariate and trait predictors (among other terms). On the other hand, many of the fourth-corner models currently applied in the literature are too simplistic to properly account for variation in environmental and trait resp…
Modeling Posidonia oceanica growth data: from linear to generalized linear mixed models
2010
The statistical analysis of annual growth of Posidonia oceanica is traditionally carried out through Gaussian linear models applied to untransformed, or log-transformed, data. In this paper, we claim that there are good reasons for re-considering this established practice, since real data on annual growth often violate the assumptions of Gaussian linear models, and show that the class of Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) represents a useful alternative for handling such violations. By analyzing Sicily PosiData-1, a real dataset on P. oceanica growth data gathered in the period 2000–2002 along the coasts of Sicily, we find that in the majority of cases Normality is rejected and the effect of …
Estimating aggregated nutrient fluxes in four Finnish rivers via Gaussian state space models
2013
Reliable estimates of the nutrient fluxes carried by rivers from land-based sources to the sea are needed for efficient abatement of marine eutrophication. Although nutrient concentrations in rivers generally display large temporal variation, sampling and analysis for nutrients, unlike flow measurements, are rarely performed on a daily basis. The infrequent data calls for ways to reliably estimate the nutrient concentrations of the missing days. Here, we use the Gaussian state space models with daily water flow as a predictor variable to predict missing nutrient concentrations for four agriculturally impacted Finnish rivers. Via simulation of Gaussian state space models, we are able to esti…
Spatio-temporal stochastic modelling: environmental and health processes
2010
Guest editorial
Forward likelihood-based predictive approach for space-time point processes
2011
Dealing with data from a space–time point process, the estimation of the conditional intensity function is a crucial issue even if a complete definition of a parametric model is not available. In particular, in case of exploratory contexts or if we want to assess the adequacy of a specific parametric model, some kind of nonparametric estimation procedure could be useful. Often, for these purposes kernel estimators are used and the estimation of the intensity function depends on the estimation of bandwidth parameters. In some fields, like for instance the seismological one, predictive properties of the estimated intensity function are pursued. Since a direct ML approach cannot be used, we pr…
Statistical relationship between hardness of drinking water and cerebrovascular mortality in Valencia: a comparison of spatiotemporal models
2003
The statistical detection of environmental risk factors in public health studies is usually difficult due to the weakness of their effects and their confounding with other covariates. Small area geographical data bring the opportunity of observing health response in a wide variety of exposure values. Temporal sequences of these geographical datasets are crucial to gaining statistical power in detecting factors. The spatiotemporal models required to perform the statistical analysis have to allow for spatial and temporal correlations, which are more easily modelled via hierarchical structures of hidden random factors. These models have produced important research activity during the last deca…
Bivariate Distributed Lag Models for the analysis of temperature-by-pollutant interaction effect on mortality.
2007
This paper introduces Bivariate Distributed Lags Models (BDLMs) to investigate synergic effect of temperature and airborne particles on mortality. These models seem particulary attractive since they allow to model interactions between such environmental variables accounting for possible delayed effects. A B-spline framework is used to approximate the coefficient surface of the temperature-by-pollutant interaction and possible alternatives are also discussed. A case study of mortality time-series data in Palermo, Italy, is presented to illustrate the model. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Testing for local structure in spatiotemporal point pattern data
2017
The detection of clustering structure in a point pattern is one of the main focuses of attention in spatiotemporal data mining. Indeed, statistical tools for clustering detection and identification of individual events belonging to clusters are welcome in epidemiology and seismology. Local second-order characteristics provide information on how an event relates to nearby events. In this work, we extend local indicators of spatial association (known as LISA functions) to the spatiotemporal context (which will be then called LISTA functions). These functions are then used to build local tests of clustering to analyse differences in local spatiotemporal structures. We present a simulation stud…
Process understanding of a wastewater batch reactor with block-wise PLS
2007
In this work a systematic methodology ‘block-wise PLS’ has been applied to thoroughly analyse data from a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) operated for biological phosphorus removal from wastewater. The aim of this study was to diagnose process variables (collected by the inexpensive and low-maintenance sensors installed in the SBR) likely related to the main key indicator of process performance: the phosphorus removal efficiency (PRE), determined off-line in the quality control laboratory. In this way, it is intended to aid the process operators in the detection of abnormal values of these critical variables which would indicate undesirable process performance, so that, they could act on the…
Spatio-temporal behaviour of the deep chlorophyll maximum in Mediterranean Sea: Development of a stochastic model for picophytoplankton dynamics
2013
In this paper, by using a stochastic reaction-diffusion-taxis model, we analyze the picophytoplankton dynamics in the basin of the Mediterranean Sea, characterized by poorly mixed waters. The model includes intraspecific competition of picophytoplankton for light and nutrients. The multiplicative noise sources present in the model account for random fluctuations of environmental variables. Phytoplankton distributions obtained from the model show a good agreement with experimental data sampled in two different sites of the Sicily Channel. The results could be extended to analyze data collected in different sites of the Mediterranean Sea and to devise predictive models for phytoplankton dynam…