László Orlóci

Western University, London, Canada · Biology

The paper responds to the question: How should one go about designing the statistical analysis of biodiversity if it had to be done across scales in time and space? The conceptual basis of the design is the definition of biodiversity as a convolution of two community components. One of the components is richness, the product of species evolution, a...

I use "prospects" to connote the continuing subversion of the environment. "Expectations" refer to what I think Statistics should be making of itself in the era of global change science. I develop thoughts on these in three main sections. In the first, I recount up-to-date information about global warming. This topic is intriguing to me, since glob...

The full text is downloadable from my webpage: https://sites.google.com/site/statisticalecology/

A model is presented which bypasses the use of the mega-models in local predicttions. The full text is downloadable from my webpage: https://sites.google.com/site/statisticalecology/s.

This paper is downloadable from my webpage: https://sites.google.com/site/statisticalecology/

The Book presents thoughts on the generalised definition of form and the related conceptual tools not explored in the classical schools that Christian Klingenberg identifies in Allometry. "Generalised" emphasises context-independence regarding the physical object or distribution type. The leading conceptual tools include Benoit Mandelbrot's fractal...

The paper presents the conceptual tools. Worked examples illustrate the analysis with remote-sensed data from the Cerrado (Savanna) Biome in the Norther Brazil Highlands.

Spreadsheet: Flying Cardinal L Orlóci - K S He Do not change the original. Save a copy for reference. Check the logic. Verify the results long hand. The main text refers to the spreadsheet content by column, and row. Good luck! Ask us if you need help by e-mail.

Allometry uses the term scaling for comparative measurement of body parts. This Essay extends the scaling method to the direct scaling of body form and characterises the technique with the scaling functions' mathematical genres. Earlier experiments show us that the classical Allometry techniques are not the way to go. We are back to direct scaling,...

We offer paradigm change in allometry, a parting from the traditional moment and product moment-based algebra to Mandelbrot’s fractal dimension for scaling body form complexity. Our examples come from the Avifauna and put the question this way: does the bird’s body form at rest and when it changes in real-time action follow the evolutionary princip...

The De Candolle-Darwin naturalisation theory offers the mechanism for generic enrichment in natural floras. Is the mechanism sufficient for the explanation of local enrichment phenomena? A previous moment and product moment based statistical study of Kentucky's natural flora found the naturalisation theory based mechanism insufficient. Is that find...

The notions of character convergence divergence is examined for plant communities

This supplement revisits the idea of asymmetric residuals and analyses the effect of asymmetry on the darc cumulative distribution generating function. The darc is our decision metric in outlier identification. The metric is the shortest great circle distance of the “strike and dip” duplets, the sampling units, as points, and the centroid of all th...

I revisit the cumulative distribution generating function (CDGF) we offered in State of the Project Report #2. The distribution object is the arc (great circle) distance of strike and dip duplets and a standard such as the centroid of all duplets. CDGF is an area integral that generates scale for ranking the duplets’ outlier status. In the suppleme...

Interest in outlier identification is universal in studies concerning the natural pattern outliers tend to obscure. The outlier problem is very much alive in the modelling project of R.A. Orlóci-Goodison, intending to reveal the historical state of attitude in the outcropping bedding rock before folding. This report aims to elucidate the underlying...

A new statistical dialect for multiscale analysis of plant particle chronoseres Back cover photo. I am standing on the bank of the Uruguay river in Parque do Turvo, a major conservation area in Rio Grande do Sul where the elements of several floras find refugia on the highly diverse terrain. Behind me, the turbulent flow in the lower channel on the...

THE BOOK’S CONTENTS span many problem areas in univariate and multivariate data analysis. The statistical methods covered reflect it, unified in the objective to serve Nature’s ecological exploration. In the broadest sense, the methods are problem-specific, have a base in mathematics and probability theory, comparative, and use pair-functions from...

The 3th edition is enlarged by four sections. I refer to the sections as Books. Addition of the new books represent significant enrichment of topics and clarity. Please read the sections consecutively. There is a new Book 1 intended to explain the basics of quantum ecology in a condensed yet revealing way. The idea of energy-based entropy is broade...

In this essay, I lay open issues considered critical when explanation is sought why the idea of applied targeted research generates so much animosity between government and MTA. I suggest the political tsunami the new Law generated goes far beyond any interest in MTA.

Holistic energetics and the vegetation complex

LOOKING BACK tells a personal story that begins in the ‘30s, a time of peace, order and prosperity for the author’s family, and ends in 2012 when the idea of the book was first conceived. The story offers recollections of the pre-World War II period, the war years and their aftermath under Soviet occupation and ruthless dictatorial rule, the author...

The essay provides an overview of concepts, explains the techniques, and outlines a complex example in the Appendix. Experi-ence suggests that readers will welcome answers to three questions about which much of the contents revolve. What are the basics of the source causes? How do we measure their effect? What kind of statistics is needed? It may i...

Abstract. Building on the contents presented in Part I, the essay takes the next step in new directions. Two major propositions give context to the discourse. The first suggests that the plant community structure, detectable by Euclidean metrics, and the structure detectable by the generalised quantum entropy scalar, are inde-pendent sources of str...

This is an executable application. It performs eigenanalysis (PCA) in conversational mode.

We argue in this essay that Kaniadakis’ k-based generalisation of entropy has much utility in ecology. Generalisation hands us quantum entropy functions, one for each value of k, within it natural range, with demonstrated indicator potential for latent energy structural traits invisible to earlier techniques. Numerical examples provide illustration...

The essay provides an overview of concepts, describes techniques, and outlines a complex example concerning the exploration of the energy-based entropy structure in plant communities. Answers are sought for specific questions: what kind of structure, where does it come from, how to measure it, what is its significance for the phytosociologist?

The lecture’s objective is to present the analytical tools which can lay open the secondary succession process in an abandoned agricultural field for advanced study of principles which govern the evolution of potential energy in community assembly.

The historic conditions which have existed in 1957 in the Aleza Lake Experimental Forest, and other matters regarding the phytosociological data set of the same vintage from the site, apply to both Part I and Part II of the report. The objectives differ. Part I confines the analysis to static structures. Part II turns to structural dynamic as a lon...

A historic account of conditions which have existed in 1957 in the Aleza Lake Experimental Forest, and matters regarding the phytosociological survey of the site during the same year, are the basis of structural analyses given in the present essay. The examples have importance in showing possibilities for the extraction of information from past phy...

Appendices excerpted from: Orlóci, L. 2015. Diversity analysis, holistic energetics, and statistics. The resonator complex model of the vegetation stand. SCADA Publishing, Canada. Online Edition: https://createspace.com/5783923

Application programs, sample data and results are included. When run sequentially, the programs perform a complete multiscale character set analysis. The references contain materials whose thorough study is recommended before any attempt to run the programs or interpret the results. The programs were tested on a Virtual Windows XP Machine, install...

Optimal sample size is sought. Two cases -- a. Sample size is considered optimal when the stress function reaches stability. b. A sample is considered homogeneous when stress stability is reached in resampling of the sample itself.

PROGRAM AND DATA SUPPLEMENT for MSTRA, Orlóci, L. 2009. Multi-scale trajectory analysis: powerful conceptual tool for understanding ecological change. Frontiers of Biology in China 4: 158-179. The programs have to be run sequentially to perform a complete trajectory analysis. Transfer of intermediate results is manual. The references contain mate...

One application program required: STEREO. The application program, data files, and examples are collected in one folder. Running instructions in downloadable ResGateSTEREO.zip file. Download from https://sites.google.com/site/statisticalecology/ item 1017 under Selected References. The fainthearted too should be pleased.

One application program required: FITMARKO101025. The application programs, data files, and examples are collected in one folder. Running instructions in downloadable ResGateMarkov.zip file. Download from https://sites.google.com/site/statisticalecology/ item 1016 under Selected References. The fainthearted too should be pleased.

Two application programs are required: METRICS.exe and TRGRPS.exe. The BASIC code is vintage, last upgraded to Windows XP is 2001. The programs have to be processed sequentially. The application programs, data files, and examples are collected in three folders. Running instructions in downloadable ResGateTRGRPS.zip file. Doenload from https://sit...

László Orlóci PROGRAM AND DATA SUPPLEMENT for Orlóci, L. 1967. An agglomerative method for classification of plant communities. Journal of Ecology 55: 193-205. Three application programs are presented: METRICS, SSA, and TREE. The BASIC code is vintage, last upgraded to Windows XP in 2001. The programs have to be run sequentially to perform a com...

Ecology joins forces with quantum theory on the pages of “Quantum Ecology” to create a holistic approach in energy studies. The infusion of quantum theoretical principles allows the study focus of ecological energetics to shift from the conventional calorific (trophic) flow in ecosystems to the potential energy structure of the vegetation. The book...

Headliner: Conceptual tools are presented in context, regarding their innovative use in community ecology. What is inside? The book presents results from a conceptual analysis of disorder-based entropy (DBE) and energy-based entropy (EBE). DBE is the central disorder scalar in diversity analysis and EBE in holistic energetics. As such DBE and EBE...

Intended to save time by not entering each item separately.

The contents are focused on the conceptual aspects of two paradigm defining topics in a comparative manner. Diversity analysis is one and holistic energetics the other. Diversity analysis is organised about disorder-based entropy (DBE). Holistic energetics revolves about energy-based entropy (EBE, both noted for computational simplicity, yet superb...

The book presents further details of a new paradigm intended for statistical studies of stand-level vegetation energetics. The approach is holistic and the techniques are quantum ecological. The case study’s objective is stand-level vegetation mapping by energy criteria. Since the vegetation process is conceived as an energy structural phenomenon,...

The research extends an ongoing invasive species study into stand-level energetics. The objective is to create a stand-level potential energy map E of the vegetation. We conceive E as a linear compound of three master effects, issuing from phylogeny, environmental forcing, and ubiquitous random effects. It should be clear from the outset that E sta...

Go to source:https://sites.google.com/site/statisticalecology/ Process, as the Book uses this term, implies simultaneous execution of two fundamental functions in continuity. One creates complexity, the other reduces it. Ecologists refer to these as community assembly and disassembly. The process requires energy input which determines the momentary...

The book revisits the fundamental quantum ecological idea that the potential energy structure of a plant community is a seamless fusion of footprints specific to basic processes which operate on all scales – phylogeny, environmental mediation, and chance. At this time the idea is tested in quantum analysis of a vegetation chronosere in Hawai’i Volc...

Vegetation Science meats quantum theory in the energy-based entropy model of this book.

The Book’s conceptualisation of multiscaling theory presents the Next Step in the study of the long-term vegetation process. The context is statistical and the process generating events have proxy in the compositional transitions of the palynological spectra. Familiarity with multiscaling is not a pre-requisite. The reader shall learn from the exam...

Go to source: https://sites.google.com/site/statisticalecology/ A novel, signal theoretical solution is sketched out for the ecological problem of how to identify and quantitatively express the assembly rules of plant communities. A case study for testing the solution leads to the astonishing conclusion that the phylogenetic signal outperforms the...

Transcript of livestream presentation on the internet to the participants of the telesymposium organized by M. Anand and K. S. He at the University of Guelf, Canada, to honour László Orlóci on his 80th birthday.

It is shown that a similarity theory (ST) formulated in the context of plant community research can lead to methodological developments based on similarity functions. ST can explain and predict ecosystem states, discover links between the physical-chemical environment and the plant communities at different scales of generalization. ST is compared w...

When vegetation data are summarized on the basis of some method of ordination, a search for distinct groups or trends is greatly facilitated if the cloud of sample points is viewed under a lens stereoscope in three dimensions. The present paper describes a simple method to construct stereograms and illustrates their application in a classification...

An information theory model is described and its application is illustrated by an actual example. Classification is accomplished in two stages. The first stage includes cluster analysis of a random sample by an agglomerative method. Cluster analysis is followed by nearest neighbor sorting in the second stage whereby the clustering results are impos...

Vegetation data from a tract of open beach in southwestern Ontario were classified in two stages to aid in the description and mapping of the plant communities of the area. Firstly, the similarity matrix generated for half the sample was analyzed by a method of similarity clustering designed to produce homogeneous and distinct groups. The four grou...

Different numerical techniques are applied to a collection of specimens of the genus Phyllodoce Salisb. The results indicate that component analysis, cluster analysis, and subsequent discriminant analysis provide an informative model for the study of structure in taxonomic collections. Structure in such collections appears as trends in variation an...

External appendix to accompany L. Orloci's Statistical Ecology

With this issue, Community Ecology enters its second decade. We feel it is the right time to put the past into perspective by taking stock of the achievements on which the Journal’s future can be predicated. Community Ecology was established in 2000 by the merger of two other journals, Coenoses published by CETA in Gorizia, Italy, and Ab-stracta Bo...

Ecological practice is telling us that to identify Nature’s rules, we should look for regularities in the resulting effects. Hidden rules are involved and the effects are manifested by compositional, functional, and structural transitions. This paper’s focus is on two conjectures regarding the governance of specific transition components, the first...

The model at the basis of trajectory analysis is conceptually simple. When applied to time series vegetation data, the projectile becomes a surrogate for vegetation state, the trajectory for the evolving vegetation process, and the properties of the trajectory for the true process characteristics. Notwithstanding its simplicity, the model is well-d...

Landscapes exhibiting complex mosaics of contrasting natural ecosystems, like forests and grasslands, continue to evade a straightforward interpretation concerning the key drivers behind the landscape mosaic. Our research shows that the high-level drivers of the land cover - land use mosaics, characteristic of the basaltic tablelands of northern Ri...

Vegetation is understood as the joint occurrence of plant species within any given site. Species combinations tend to reoccur at different points in space and time suggesting the existence of assembly rules.The issue of this essay is the vegetation process, reflecting the fact that vegetation changes permanently. Finding a universal prediction theo...

Lectures in a lecture series by several instructors

In this paper, logarithmic functions are described based on which the total diversity of a collection can be partitioned into components specific to factorial effects. The standard statistical modus operandi of testing hypotheses in a factorial design is applied, only the test criteria changed. The factor identities are chosen according to stated h...

Palynological records helped to illuminate the past, but we show the take can be made much sharper when statistical analysis recognises the records' scale dependence. The latter is an unavoidable consequence of site selection, sediment sampling, and the samples' arrangement into time series by dating. To make provision for this in statistical analy...

Late Quaternary vegetation, fire and climate dynamics have been studied based on high-resolution dated pollen and charcoal samples and multivariate data analysis. The samples were taken from a 212-cm-long sediment core of a bog in the Cambará do Sul region on the highlands of northeastern Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. The records, including seve...

Circa 50 hours of lectures, exercises, tutorials.

The characteristics discussed are measurable on the process "trajectory", the path traced out by vegetation transitions in time. It is argued that since the trajectory is symptomatic of factor influences and governing principles, it has to be an object of central interest in dynamic studies. Theoretical points, scaling scenarios, and analytical too...

Two topics are discussed: What did I learn from V.J. Krajina, my doctoral supervisor? What are the ideas which inspired my approach in dynamic ecology? The interview is published in Czech. I included the English original from which the translation was made by Pavel Kovar of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

This Essay is response to the general question that I put to myself: How should I, an outsider to the topic, go about rationalising the notion of pattern and its dynamics when the pattern objects come from the vegetation? To facilitate succint discussion of a very broad and intertwined topic, the Essay breaks down the pattern paradigm into three pa...

The vegetation history of the Anderson pond site is well known from the pioneering work of Hazel R. Delcourt. Yet it is a fact that the site's paleopollen record is far from having been fully explored for information. This is particularly true when one considers the characteristics of the process itself. It is in this area that this paper presents...

It is shown that community dynamics is neither haphazard nor completely directed. This is quite clear from our examination of a concrete example where recovery dynamics in vegetation progressed from an early phase of strong linear determinism to intense randomness with phase transition defined by density. Is it possible to reconstruct the two phase...

Hypothesis testing in phytocoenological applications is likely to be hindered when based on conventional statistical methods. The problem created by unrealistic assumptions can, however, be overcome by randomization. This paper discusses the general idea of randomization testing, describes a method and interprets its application in group comparison...

Although an intuitive notion of community complexity is well established in ecological theory, its quantitative definition in other than just surrogate terms continues to elude the practitioners of the art. We examine the notion in its broad sense and develop a new measure based on the average lengthL(S) of the communication-theoretical parsimoniou...

The problems of sampling design in large-scale ecosystem surveys are discussed. Attention is focused on the sampling unit, the method of selection, sample size optimality, and sampling unit description in an adverse sampling enviroment.

The full text is downloadable from my webpage: Global warming: the process and its anticipated phytoclimatic effects in temperate and cold zone.

This paper discusses the idea that perceptions of the vegetation are affected by the taxonomic system on the basis of which plant populations are identified. It is argued that the best taxonomic system is not necessarily species-based, and that the traditional belief that a common taxonomic platform can be found for vegetation analysis is not reali...