A systematic review of the use of statistics in studies of restoration ecology of arid areas
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Bioinformatics, Conservation Biology, Ecology
- Keywords
- Biostatistics, Systematic Review, Restoration Ecology, Desert, Arid, Statistical Tests, Statistics, York University, BIOL 5081, Lortie
- Copyright
- © 2014 Noble
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2014. A systematic review of the use of statistics in studies of restoration ecology of arid areas. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e551v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.551v1
Abstract
Restoration ecology is the study of restoration or restoration practices in degraded areas. It is of particular importance in arid environments due to the heavy impact humans have had in these areas. Some studies of restoration may require different statistics due to the unique challenges faced when examining degraded areas. A systematic review was conducted to assess the use of statistics in the field. It was determined that the field and influence of restoration ecology had increased dramatically since its development. Statistics are widely used in the study of restoration of arid areas. Major tests are similar to those found in other ecological studies such as ANOVAs and linear regressions. There were a few less common tests used in some of the studies. These include tests such as the Mantel test which may be useful to restoration ecology and should be explored further. Finally it was determined that the description of how statistics were used in the study was particularly important. The description should be detailed to help other researchers understand the findings of the paper. This will help to advance the field and the restoration of arid environments.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ PrePrints for comments. Paper is for BIOL 5081 Biostats, York University, Fall 2014.
