Simultaneous Confidence Inference on Species Accumulation Curves

Abstract

A species accumulation curve is a useful tool in ecology. We construct a simultaneous confidence band for a single species accumulation curve, as an improvement over the existing point-wise confidence band. We also construct a simultaneous confidence band for the difference between two species accumulation curves, as a graphical procedure used to compare two species assemblages. A bootstrap-based calibration algorithm is adopted to tune the coverage probability of a confidence band toward its desired confidence level. The performance of the proposed procedures is demonstrated using both simulated data and real data.