When significance becomes insignificant: Effect sizes and their uncertainties in Bayesian and frequentist frameworks as an alternative approach when analyzing ecotoxicological data.

Abstract

Bayesian methods and frequentist confidence intervals are proposed as an alternative approach in ecotoxicology, emphasizing effect sizes and associated (un)certainties to judge the biological relevance of effects instead of basing decisions on p values. These approaches show advantages over null hypothesis significance testing. In particular, Bayesian methods revealed more potential than frequentist counterparts, as the posterior distribution and its credible intervals can be directly interpreted as the probability of effect sizes. Environ Toxicol Chem 2018;37:1949-1955. © 2018 SETAC.