IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecomod/v220y2009i12p1461-1468.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

In the mixed world of predictive biology—Contradiction or support

Author

Listed:
  • Heegaard, Einar
  • Nilsen, Trygve

Abstract

Statistical prediction is a tool and aim in ecology and wildlife management and conservation. A prediction may either be supported by or contradicted by observations of an unknown set of observations. A contradiction occurs if the prediction is not included within the range of the unknown observations, i.e. the prediction misses the cloud of observations completely. Mixed-effects models, frequently used for statistical assessment of clustered data, carry information needed for calculating the probability of such contradictions. Here we present a new versatile statistic, the probability of contradiction (P (Contra)), that describes how often we would anticipate a new cluster of observations contradicting our predictions. Some benefits of P (Contra) are: (1) easy to calculate and intuitive interpretation, (2) comparability between datasets, (3) inclusion of residual correlation, (4) summary of the multitude of information from mixed models into one statistics, and (5) applicable to local mixed-effect models.

Suggested Citation

  • Heegaard, Einar & Nilsen, Trygve, 2009. "In the mixed world of predictive biology—Contradiction or support," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 220(12), pages 1461-1468.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:220:y:2009:i:12:p:1461-1468
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2009.03.015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438000900180X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2009.03.015?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:220:y:2009:i:12:p:1461-1468. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/ecological-modelling .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.