IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/japsta/v41y2014i9p2028-2043.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A general class of test statistics for Van Valen's Red Queen hypothesis

Author

Listed:
  • Jelani Wiltshire
  • Fred W. Huffer
  • William C. Parker

Abstract

Van Valen's Red Queen hypothesis states that within a homogeneous taxonomic group the age is statistically independent of the rate of extinction. The case of the Red Queen hypothesis being addressed here is when the homogeneous taxonomic group is a group of similar species. Since Van Valen's work, various statistical approaches have been used to address the relationship between taxon age and the rate of extinction. We propose a general class of test statistics that can be used to test for the effect of age on the rate of extinction. These test statistics allow for a varying background rate of extinction and attempt to remove the effects of other covariates when assessing the effect of age on extinction. No model is assumed for the covariate effects. Instead we control for covariate effects by pairing or grouping together similar species. Simulations are used to compare the power of the statistics. We apply the test statistics to data on Foram extinctions and find that age has a positive effect on the rate of extinction. A derivation of the null distribution of one of the test statistics is provided in the supplementary material.

Suggested Citation

  • Jelani Wiltshire & Fred W. Huffer & William C. Parker, 2014. "A general class of test statistics for Van Valen's Red Queen hypothesis," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(9), pages 2028-2043, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:japsta:v:41:y:2014:i:9:p:2028-2043
    DOI: 10.1080/02664763.2014.907394
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02664763.2014.907394
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/02664763.2014.907394?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:japsta:v:41:y:2014:i:9:p:2028-2043. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CJAS20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.