To replicate, or not to replicate - that is the question: how to tackle nonlinear responses in ecological experiments

Ecology Letters
Juergen KreylingKlaus Steenberg Larsen

Abstract

A fundamental challenge in experimental ecology is to capture nonlinearities of ecological responses to interacting environmental drivers. Here, we demonstrate that gradient designs outperform replicated designs for detecting and quantifying nonlinear responses. We report the results of (1) multiple computer simulations and (2) two purpose-designed empirical experiments. The findings consistently revealed that unreplicated sampling at a maximum number of sampling locations maximised prediction success (i.e. the R² to the known truth) irrespective of the amount of stochasticity and the underlying response surfaces, including combinations of two linear, unimodal or saturating drivers. For the two empirical experiments, the same pattern was found, with gradient designs outperforming replicated designs in revealing the response surfaces of underlying drivers. Our findings suggest that a move to gradient designs in ecological experiments could be a major step towards unravelling underlying response patterns to continuous and interacting environmental drivers in a feasible and statistically powerful way.

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Citations

Nov 16, 2019·Science·Peter Manning
Jan 28, 2020·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Richard D Bardgett, Tancredi Caruso
Jan 30, 2020·Applications in Plant Sciences·Vijay V BarveRobert P Guralnick
May 7, 2020·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·James A OrrJeremy J Piggott
May 31, 2019·Ecology Letters·David R Chalcraft
Aug 4, 2019·Nature Communications·Felipe BastidaManuel Delgado-Baquerizo
Aug 2, 2020·The Science of the Total Environment·Fandong MengShiping Wang
Dec 29, 2020·Global Change Biology·Simon ReynaertIvan Nijs
Jan 10, 2021·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Philip A FayH Wayne Polley
Mar 17, 2021·Integrative and Comparative Biology·Ashley A WilsonClinton D Francis
May 7, 2021·The Science of the Total Environment·Tjorven HinzkeJuergen Kreyling
May 29, 2021·Frontiers in Plant Science·Victoria Rodriguez-MorrisonYoubin Zheng
Jul 4, 2021·The Science of the Total Environment·Alberto Maceda-VeigaRalph Mac Nally
Jul 22, 2021·Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America·Marie-Pier HébertGregor F Fussmann
Aug 26, 2021·Nature Communications·Joan DudneyJohn J Battles
Oct 18, 2021·The Science of the Total Environment·Martyn G KellySandra Poikane
Jan 26, 2022·The Science of the Total Environment·Enrico PirottaPeter L Tyack

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