Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Statistical Methodology
Sunlight and diel behaviors promote coexistence of frogs through temporal acoustic partitioning
Published: 2024-08-12
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Longitudinal Data Analysis and Time Series, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Understanding how species coexist is one of the main goals in ecology. While many have documented how species coexist in nature, there is much interspecific and spatial heterogeneity in which resources are partitioned and in the contributing environmental factors. Overall, we lack a general understanding of how stable coexistence is maintained for particular groups of organisms. Thus, we studied [...]
An integrated population modelling workflow for supporting mesopredator management
Published: 2024-08-01
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Biodiversity, Biostatistics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Longitudinal Data Analysis and Time Series, Natural Resources and Conservation, Population Biology, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Survival Analysis, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Expanding populations of mesopredators threaten biodiversity and human health in many ecosystems across the world. Lethal control through harvest is commonly implemented as a mitigation measure, yet the effects of harvest and its interaction with environmental conditions on mesopredator population dynamics have rarely been assessed quantitatively due to data constraints. Recent advances [...]
Designing causal mediation analyses to quantify intermediary processes in ecology
Published: 2024-05-13
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Longitudinal Data Analysis and Time Series, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Statistical Methodology
Ecologists seek to understand the intermediary ecological processes through which changes in one attribute in a system affect other attributes. Yet, quantifying the causal effects of these mediating processes in ecological systems is challenging. We must define what we mean by a “mediated effect”, determine what assumptions are required to estimate mediation effects without bias, and assess [...]
A big data and machine learning approach for monitoring the condition of ecosystems
Published: 2024-01-16
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Forest Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Ecosystems are highly valuable as a source of goods and services and as a heritage for future generations. Knowing their condition is extremely important for all management and conservation activities and public policies. Until now, the evaluation of ecosystem condition has been unsatisfactory and thus lacks practical implementation for most countries. We propose that ecosystem integrity is a [...]
Patterns and drivers of population trends on individual Breeding Bird Survey routes using spatially explicit models and route-level covariates
Published: 2023-10-27
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biostatistics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Population Biology, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models
Spatial patterns in population trends, particularly those at fine geographic scales, can help better understand the factors driving population change in North American birds. The standard trend models for the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) were designed to estimate changes in relative abundance through time (trend) within broad geographic strata, such as countries, Bird Conservation [...]
Beyond single-species models: leveraging multispecies forecasts to navigate the dynamics of ecological predictability
Published: 2023-03-13
Subjects: Desert Ecology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Multivariate Analysis, Population Biology, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability
Forecasting the responses of natural populations to environmental change is a key priority in the management of ecological systems. This is challenging because the dynamics of multispecies ecological communities are influenced by many factors. Populations can exhibit complex, nonlinear responses to environmental change, often over multiple temporal lags. In addition, biotic interactions, and [...]
A probabilistic approach to estimating timber harvest location
Published: 2023-02-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biostatistics, Forest Management, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models
Determining the harvest location of timber is crucial to enforcing international regulations designed to protect natural resources and to tackle illegal logging and associated trade in forest products. Stable Isotope Ratio Analysis (SIRA) can be used to verify claims of timber harvest location by matching levels of naturally-occurring stable isotopes within wood tissue to location-specific ratios [...]
Assessing species interactions using integrated predator-prey models
Published: 2022-12-15
Subjects: Biostatistics, Dynamic Systems, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Statistical Methodology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Inferring the strength of species interactions from demographic data is a challenging task. The Integrated Population Modelling (IPM) approach, bringing together population counts, capture-recapture, and individual-level fecundity data into a unified model framework, has been extended from single species to the community level. This allows to specify IPMs for multiple species with interactions [...]
Decline effects are rare in ecology: Comment
Published: 2022-06-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability
Recently, Costello and Fox (2022) tested, with a large dataset, the hypothesis of whether there is a widespread decline effect in the discipline of ecology. In other words, the magnitude of the reported ecological effect sizes declines over time (Leimu and Koricheva 2004). Contrary to early results from much smaller datasets (Jennions and Møller 2002, Barto and Rillig 2012), Costello and Fox [...]
Multi-population analysis reveals spatial consistency in drivers of population dynamics of a declining migratory bird
Published: 2022-04-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Biostatistics, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Longitudinal Data Analysis and Time Series, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Population Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability, Survival Analysis, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Many migratory species are in decline across their geographical ranges. Single-population studies can provide important insights into drivers at a local scale, but effective conservation requires multi-population perspectives. This is challenging because relevant data are often hard to consolidate, and state-of-the-art analytical tools are typically tailored to specific datasets. We capitalized [...]