Jaccard/Tanimoto similarity test and estimation methods for biological presence-absence data.

ABSTRACT:

Background

A survey of presences and absences of specific species across multiple biogeographic units (or bioregions) are used in a broad area of biological studies from ecology to microbiology. Using binary presence-absence data, we evaluate species co-occurrences that help elucidate relationships among organisms and environments. To summarize similarity between occurrences of species, we routinely use the Jaccard/Tanimoto coefficient, which is the ratio of their intersection to their union. It is natural, then, to identify statistically significant Jaccard/Tanimoto coefficients, which suggest non-random co-occurrences of species. However, statistical hypothesis testing using this similarity coefficient has been seldom used or studied.

Results

We introduce a hypothesis test

SUBMITTER: Chung NC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6929325 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature