Don't let spurious accusations of pseudoreplication limit our ability to learn from natural experiments (and other messy kinds of ecological monitoring).
Don't let spurious accusations of pseudoreplication limit our ability to learn from natural experiments (and other messy kinds of ecological monitoring).
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DOI：
10.1002/ece3.1782
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发表时间：
2015-11
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Gray A
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Davies GM;Gray A
伪重复被定义为使用推论统计来测试治疗效果，其中治疗不重复和/或重复在统计上不独立。这是生态学中一个真实但有争议的问题，特别是在昂贵的景观尺度操纵、伦理或其他问题可能限制样本量的行为研究、临时监测数据以及在单个地点发生偶然事件的自然实验分析等情况下。这里回顾了有关该主题的重要出版物，以说明有关伪复制概念有效性的争论。通过对生态学家的调查以及实验设计和出版问题的案例研究来探讨问题的严重程度、生态学家的解决方案、审稿人的态度以及提交稿件的命运。跨一系列生态学科工作的科学家经常遇到伪复制问题，并将解决方案融入到他们的设计和分析中。这些包括仔细定义假设和感兴趣的群体，承认统计推断的局限性以及使用包括嵌套和随机效应在内的统计方法。如果提出伪复制的指控，许多生态学家在发表他们的作品时将面临相当大的挑战——即使问题已经得到解决。许多审稿人因伪重复而拒绝论文，如果他们自己没有遇到过这个问题，这种情况会更常见。假复制的概念被过于武断地应用，并且经常导致审查期间被拒绝。对相关的哲学问题和潜在的统计解决方案的考虑不够。通过停止生态研究的发表，审稿人正在放慢生态研究的步伐，并限制管理案例研究、自然事件研究和可用于形成循证解决方案的有价值数据的范围。为作者、审稿人和编辑提供了在写作和审稿过程中公平一致地处理假复制的建议。
Pseudoreplication is defined as the use of inferential statistics to test for treatment effects where treatments are not replicated and/or replicates are not statistically independent. It is a genuine but controversial issue in ecology particularly in the case of costly landscape‐scale manipulations, behavioral studies where ethics or other concerns may limit sample sizes, ad hoc monitoring data, and the analysis of natural experiments where chance events occur at a single site. Here key publications on the topic are reviewed to illustrate the debate that exists about the conceptual validity of pseudoreplication. A survey of ecologists and case studies of experimental design and publication issues are used to explore the extent of the problem, ecologists’ solutions, reviewers’ attitudes, and the fate of submitted manuscripts. Scientists working across a range of ecological disciplines regularly come across the problem of pseudoreplication and build solutions into their designs and analyses. These include carefully defining hypotheses and the population of interest, acknowledging the limits of statistical inference and using statistical approaches including nesting and random effects. Many ecologists face considerable challenges getting their work published if accusations of pseudoreplication are made – even if the problem has been dealt with. Many reviewers reject papers for pseudoreplication, and this occurs more often if they haven't experienced the issue themselves. The concept of pseudoreplication is being applied too dogmatically and often leads to rejection during review. There is insufficient consideration of the associated philosophical issues and potential statistical solutions. By stopping the publication of ecological studies, reviewers are slowing the pace of ecological research and limiting the scope of management case studies, natural events studies, and valuable data available to form evidence‐based solutions. Recommendations for fair and consistent treatment of pseudoreplication during writing and review are given for authors, reviewers, and editors.
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影响因子：
22.4
作者：
ROSENTHAL, R
通讯作者：
ROSENTHAL, R
影响因子：
5.5
作者：
MALTBY, E;LEGG, CJ;PROCTOR, MCF
通讯作者：
PROCTOR, MCF
影响因子：
3.7
作者：
Nagel, TA;Svoboda, M;Diaci, J
通讯作者：
Diaci, J
影响因子：
6.6
作者：
Harrison, Freya
通讯作者：
Harrison, Freya
影响因子：
6.3
作者：
Ramage, Benjamin S.;Sheil, Douglas;Potts, Matthew D.
通讯作者：
Potts, Matthew D.