Random sampling of skewed distributions implies Taylor's power law of fluctuation scaling
Abstract
One of the most widely confirmed empirical patterns in ecology is Taylor's law (TL): The variance of population density is approximately a power-law function of the mean population density. We showed analytically that, when observations are randomly sampled in blocks from a single frequency distribution, the sample variance will be related to the sample mean by TL, and the parameters of TL can be predicted from the first four moments of the frequency distribution. The estimate of the exponent of TL is proportional to the skewness of the distribution. Random sampling suffices to explain the existence and predict the parameters of TL in well-defined circumstances relevant to some, but not all, published empirical examples of TL.
- Publication:
-
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- June 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.1503824112
- Bibcode:
- 2015PNAS..112.7749C