Search results for "Statistical"

The irreducible uncertainty of the demography–environment interaction in ecology

2002

The interpretation of ecological data has been greatly improved by bridging the gap between ecological and statistical models. The major challenge is to separate competing hypotheses concerning demography, or other ecological relationships, and environmental variability (noise). In this paper we demonstrate that this may be an arduous, if not impossible, task. It is the lack of adequate ecological theory, rather than statistical sophistication, which leads to this problem. A reconstruction of underlying ecological processes can only be done if we are certain of either the demographic or the noise model, which is something that can only be achieved by an improved theory of stochastic ecologi…

Effect of acyl-CoA oxidase activity on the accumulation of gamma-decalactone by the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica: a factorial approach.

2007

International audience; beta-Oxidation is a cyclic pathway involved in the degradation of lipids. In yeast, it occurs in peroxisomes and the first step is catalyzed by an acyl-CoA oxidase (Aoxp). The yeast Yarrowia lipolytica possesses several genes (POX) coding for Aoxps. This study is based on the factorial analysis of results obtained with the many POX derivative strains that have been constructed previously. The effect of interactions between Aoxps on the acyl-CoA oxidase (Aox) activity was important even at the second order. We then investigated the effect of Aox activity on growth and lactone production. Aox activity was correlated with acidification of the medium by cells and with ce…

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…

Statistical modelling and RCS detrending methods provide similar estimates of long-term trend in radial growth of common beech in north-eastern France

2011

International audience; Dendrochronological methods have greatly contributed to the documentation of past long-term trends in forest growth. These methods primarily focus on the high-frequency signals of tree ring chronologies. They require the removal of the ageing trend in tree growth, known as 'standardisation' or 'detrending', as a prerequisite to the estimation of such trends. Because the approach is sequential, it may however absorb part of the low-frequency historical signal. In this study, we investigate the effect of a sequential and a simultaneous estimation of the ageing trend on the chronology of growth. We formerly developed a method to estimate historical changes in growth, in…

Priorities for research in soil ecology

2017

The ecological interactions that occur in and with soil are of consequence in many ecosystems on the planet. These interactions provide numerous essential ecosystem services, and the sustainable management of soils has attracted increasing scientific and public attention. Although soil ecology emerged as an independent field of research many decades ago, and we have gained important insights into the functioning of soils, there still are fundamental aspects that need to be better understood to ensure that the ecosystem services that soils provide are not lost and that soils can be used in a sustainable way. In this perspectives paper, we highlight some of the major knowledge gaps that shoul…

Estimating the abundance of burrow-nesting species through the statistical analysis of combined playback and visual surveys

2016

Non-unique population dynamics: basic patterns

2000

We review the basic patterns of complex non-uniqueness in simple discrete-time population dynamics models. We begin by studying a population dynamics model of a single species with a two-stage, two-habitat life cycle. We then explore in greater detail two ecological models describing host‐macroparasite and host‐parasitoid interspecific interactions. In general, several types of attractors, e.g. point equilibria vs. chaotic, periodic vs. quasiperiodic and quasiperiodic vs. chaotic attractors, may coexist in the same mapping. This non-uniqueness also indicates that the bifurcation diagrams, or the routes to chaos, depend on initial conditions and are therefore non-unique. The basins of attrac…

Fossorial but widespread: the phylogeography of the common spadefoot toad (Pelobates fuscus), and the role of the Po Valley as a major source of gene…

2007

International audience; Pelobates fuscus is a fossorial amphibian that inhabits much of the European plain areas. To unveil traces of expansion and contraction events of the species' range, we sequenced 702 bp of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. To infer the population history we applied phylogeographical methods, such as nested clade phylogeographical analysis (NCPA), and used summary statistics to analyse population structure under a neutral model of evolution. Populations were assigned to different drainage systems and we tested hypotheses of explicit refugial models using information from analysis of molecular variance, nucleotide diversity, effective population size estimation, NCP…

A spatially explicit risk assessment approach: Cetaceans and marine traffic in the Pelagos Sanctuary (Mediterranean Sea).

2017

15 páginas, 5 figuras, 2 tablas.-- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

A validity and reliability study of Conditional Entropy Measures of Pulse Rate Variability

2019

In this work, we present the feasibility to use a simpler methodological approach for the assessment of the short-term complexity of Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Specifically, we propose to exploit Pulse Rate Variability (PRV) recorded through photoplethysmography in place of HRV measured from the ECG, and to compute complexity via a linear Gaussian approximation in place of the standard model-free methods (e.g., nearest neighbor entropy estimates) usually applied to HRV. Linear PRV-based and model-free HRV-based complexity measures were compared via statistical tests, correlation analysis and Bland-Altman plots, demonstrating an overall good agreement. These results support the applicabil…