Model selection for ecologists: the worldviews of AIC and BIC

Ecologists frequently ask questions that are best addressed with a model comparison approach. Under this system, the merit of several models is considered without necessarily requiring that (1) models are nested, (2) one of the models is true, and (3) only current data be used. This is in marked con...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology (Durham) Vol. 95; no. 3; pp. 631 - 636
Main Authors: Aho, Ken, Derryberry, DeWayne, Peterson, Teri
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Ecological Society of America 01.03.2014
Subjects:
Data Interpretation, Statistical
Ecological modeling
Ecological selection
Ecosystem models
FORUM—P values and model selection
Mathematical models
Modeling
Models, Statistical
Null hypothesis
P values
Parametric models
Predictive modeling
Research Design
Sample size
ISSN:0012-9658, 1939-9170
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Ecologists frequently ask questions that are best addressed with a model comparison approach. Under this system, the merit of several models is considered without necessarily requiring that (1) models are nested, (2) one of the models is true, and (3) only current data be used. This is in marked contrast to the pragmatic blend of Neyman-Pearson and Fisherian significance testing conventionally emphasized in biometric texts (Christensen 2005), in which (1) just two hypotheses are under consideration, representing a pairwise comparison of models, (2) one of the models, H sub(0), is assumed to be true, and (3) a single data set is used to quantify evidence concerning H sub(0).
Bibliography:Corresponding Editor: A. M. Ellison. For reprints of this Forum, see footnote 1, p. 609.
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
ObjectType-Commentary-3
content type line 23
ISSN:0012-9658
1939-9170
DOI:10.1890/13-1452.1