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The Bull's‐Eye Method for Testing Randomness in Ecological Communities
Author(s) -
Hopf F. A.,
Brown James H.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.144
H-Index - 294
eISSN - 1939-9170
pISSN - 0012-9658
DOI - 10.2307/1938670
Subject(s) - randomness , ecology , desert (philosophy) , character (mathematics) , statistics , mathematics , geography , biology , philosophy , geometry , epistemology
We present a method for examining quantitative ecological data to determine whether they can be regarded as being random in character. This method allows direct comparison of two or more data sets containing different numbers of species. This permits analysis of large statistical ensembles of data, often resulting in conclusions with high statistical confidence. The method is used to demonstrate that abundances of species within communities are not distributed at random. Body mass ratios are also shown to be nonrandom in communities of desert rodents, but appear to be random in guilds of breeding birds. This method is shown to be superior to the Barton and David (1956) mathematics recently used by Simberloff and Boecklen (1981).