Premium
MOSAIC_SSD: A new web tool for species sensitivity distribution to include censored data by maximum likelihood
Author(s) -
Kon Kam King Guillaume,
Veber Philippe,
Charles Sandrine,
DelignetteMuller Marie Laure
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
environmental toxicology and chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 171
eISSN - 1552-8618
pISSN - 0730-7268
DOI - 10.1002/etc.2644
Subject(s) - mosaic , representativeness heuristic , computer science , parametric statistics , sensitivity (control systems) , statistics , confidence interval , data mining , parametric model , missing data , mathematics , machine learning , geography , engineering , archaeology , electronic engineering
Censored data are seldom taken into account in species sensitivity distribution (SSD) analysis. However, they are found in virtually every dataset and sometimes represent the better part of the data. Stringent recommendations on data quality often entail discarding a lot of these meaningful data, resulting in datasets of reduced size which lack representativeness of any realistic community. However, it is reasonably simple to include censored data in SSD by using an extension of the standard maximum likelihood method. The authors detail this approach based on the use of the R‐package fitdistrplus , dedicated to the fit of parametric probability distributions. The authors present the new Web tool MOSAIC_SSD, that can fit an SSD on datasets containing any type of data, censored or not. The MOSAIC_SSD Web tool predicts any hazardous concentration and provides bootstrap confidence intervals on the predictions. Finally, the authors illustrate the added value of including censored data in SSD, taking examples from published data. Environ Toxicol Chem 2014; 33:2133–2139. © 2014 SETAC