We’ve been out in the field, painstakingly collecting each butterfly and measuring its body length and wingspan. Now is the moment of truth. We’re about to make a plot and see if the assumptions we make about the relationship between the two measurements are backed up by a linear regression. Is the relationship between length and wingspan what we’d expect? Will a linear model be appropriate or are we going to have to break out the heavier machinery?
Everything that ecologists do – from saving endangered species to projecting climate change impacts – requires ecological data. Sometimes that data can be hard to come by, like when you’re trying to figure out the range of a rare moss. At other times, that data can be smack bang in front of you, but impossible to measure. The depth of a lake for instance, or the surface area of a tree. Today, we’ll look at how to overcome that second situation, by using other, more easy-to-obtain covariates to provide an estimate of the property you’re looking for.
