Ecology Exam Review

Flashcards to prepare for an ecology exam, including key terms and definitions from the lecture notes.

Ratio

Average standard deviation.

A and B

Represent the average of a species in Group A and Group B, respectively.

Zero Score

Indicates the species is not in Group A but is present in Group B.

Cumulative Summation

Cumulative contribution of each species to the overall differences between groups.

Vegan Package

R package used for community ecology analysis that contains functions for performing ordination and hypothesis testing.

Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS)

An ordination technique used to visualize the similarity or dissimilarity between samples in a lower-dimensional space.

ANOSIM and PERMANOVA

Hypothesis tests used to determine if there are significant differences between groups based on a dissimilarity matrix.

MANOVA

A metric technique similar to ANOVA but for multiple dependent variables.

PERMANOVA

A versatile technique for multivariate analysis, alternative to ANOSIM.

Wilks Lambda

A test statistic used in MANOVA, considered the 'Goldilocks' of tests because it's a compromise between conservative and liberal approaches.

Multivariate Normality

Assumption that the variables collectively have a normal distribution within groups.

Homogeneity of Covariance Matrices

Assumption that all variables have homogeneity of variance and the correlations between variables are the same across groups.

Sequential Bonferroni Test/Home Test

A method to control for Type I errors when conducting multiple comparisons by ranking p-values and adjusting the significance level sequentially.

Pseudo-F

A test statistic in PERMANOVA calculated similarly to an F-statistic in ANOVA, but its p-value is determined through permutations.