Predicting benthic counts in Lake Huron using spatial statistics and quasi-likelihood
✍ Scribed by David M. Dolan; Abdel H. El-Shaarawi; Trefor B. Reynoldson
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 187 KB
- Volume
- 11
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1180-4009
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✦ Synopsis
Spatial statistics have been applied to many types of problems in the environmental sciences, mostly dealing with continuously distributed data from Gaussian or near-Gaussian processes. There is a need for methods capable of handling discrete, non-Gaussian data, such as species counts from biological processes. This paper applies the method of quasi-likelihood from general linear models to the problem of spatial prediction of benthic invertebrate counts. Variogram models are ®tted to quasi-likelihood residuals with two alternative distance metrics. The models are compared using cross-validation and predictions are made using the classical estimator of the variogram and distance determined from a Geographic Information System (GIS). A brief simulation study is included that veri®es the applicability of asymptotic results to the estimation of model parameters.