Conservation of pattern as a tool for inference on spatial snapshots in ecological data.

ABSTRACT: As climate change and other anthropogenic factors increase the uncertainty of vegetation ecosystem persistence, the ability to rapidly assess their dynamics is paramount. Vegetation and sessile communities form a variety of striking regular spatial patterns such as stripes, spots and labyrinths, that have been used as indicators of ecosystem current state, through qualitative analysis of simple models. Here we describe a new method for rigorous quantitative estimation of biological parameters from a single spatial snapshot. We formulate a synthetic likelihood through consideration of the expected change in the correlation structure of the spatial pattern. This then allows Bayesian inference to be performed on the model parameters, which includes providing parameter uncertainty. The method

SUBMITTER: Irvine MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5760736 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature