Permanent researchers: Emili García-Berthou, Stéphanie Gascón, Xavier D. Quintana

Statistical ecology can be defined as the whole set of quantitative techniques for the analysis of ecological data. Some members of the GRECO group have great interest in statistical ecology and in contributing to the optimum application of statistical techniques in ecology and facilitating its use, through computer programmes such as R (https://www.r-project.org/ ). We have contributed to the application of little used techniques such as Expectile Poisson regression, negative binomial models (Negative binomial models) or seasonal curves of growth.

Within the framework of this line of research and given the importance of functional approaches for understanding trophic interactions at a community level, but also in terms of populations, a statistical tool has also been developed in collaboration with the Research Group in Statistics and Compositional Data Analysis at the UdG (http://imae.udg.edu/Recerca/EIO/inici_cat.html ), to measure the diversity of sizes of organisms in a community or a population. At a conceptual level, the diversity of sizes is interpreted exactly the same as the diversity of species. This new parameter provides an additional measure for the structure of communities and/or populations and as such it has been possible to check that this responds to both biotic and abiotic processes. 

Publicacions representatives:

García-Berthou E. 2001. On the misuse of residuals in ecology: testing regression residuals vs. the analysis of covariance. Journal of Animal Ecology 70: 708-711.

García-Berthou E., Alcaraz C., Benejam L. & Benito J. 2009. Diseño experimental y análisis de datos. p. 397-412 in Elosegi A. & Sabater S. (eds.) Conceptos y técnicas en ecología fluvial. Fundación BBVA, Bilbao.

García-Berthou E., Carmona-Catot G., Merciai R. & Ogle D.H. 2012. A technical note on seasonal growth models. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 22: 635–640.

Gascón S., Boix D., Sala J. & Quintana X.D. (2009) Patterns in size and species diversity of benthic macroinvertebrates in Mediterrannean salt marshes. Marine Ecology-Progress Series 391: 21-32.

Magellan K. & García-Berthou E. 2015. Influences of size and sex on invasive species aggression and native species vulnerability: a case for modern regression techniques. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 25: 537–549.

Quintana X.D., Brucet S., Boix D., López-Flores R., Gascón S., Badosa A., Sala J., Moreno-Amich R. & Egozcue J.J. 2008 A non-parametric method for the measurement of size diversity, with emphasis on data standardisation. Limnology and Oceanography: Methods 6: 75-86.