Premium
Comparing Species Assemblages Via Species Accumulation Curves
Author(s) -
Xuan Mao Chang,
Li Jun
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
biometrics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.298
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1541-0420
pISSN - 0006-341X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1541-0420.2008.01182.x
Subject(s) - pointwise , statistics , confidence interval , mathematics , eigenvalues and eigenvectors , statistic , test statistic , econometrics , statistical hypothesis testing , ecology , biology , mathematical analysis , physics , quantum mechanics
Summary Comparing species assemblages given incidence‐based data is of importance in ecological studies, often done by a visual inspection of estimated species accumulation curves or by an ad hoc use of 95% pointwise confidence bands of these curves. It is shown that comparing species assemblages is a challenging problem. A χ 2 test is proposed. An adjustment using an eigenvalue decomposition is proposed to overcome computational difficulties. The bootstrap method is also suggested to approximate the distribution of the proposed test statistic. The eigenvalue adjusted (Eva) χ 2 test and the Eva‐bootstrap test are assessed by a simulation study. Both the Eva‐ χ 2 and the Eva‐bootstrap tests are applied to a study that involves two woody seedling species assemblages.