Divide and conquer? Size adjustment with allometry and intermediate outcomes

Shinichi Nakagawa; Fonti Kar; Rose E O'Dea; Joel L Pick; Malgorzata Lagisz

doi:10.1186/s12915-017-0448-5

Divide and conquer? Size adjustment with allometry and intermediate outcomes

BMC Biol. 2017 Nov 9;15(1):107. doi: 10.1186/s12915-017-0448-5.

Authors

Shinichi Nakagawa^{1

2}, Fonti Kar³, Rose E O'Dea^{3

4}, Joel L Pick³, Malgorzata Lagisz³

Affiliations

¹ Evolution & Ecology Research Centre and School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia. s.nakagawa@unsw.edu.au.
² Diabetes and Metabolism Division, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, 384 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney, NSW, 2010, Australia. s.nakagawa@unsw.edu.au.
³ Evolution & Ecology Research Centre and School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
⁴ Diabetes and Metabolism Division, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, 384 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney, NSW, 2010, Australia.

Abstract

Many trait measurements are size-dependent, and while we often divide these traits by size before fitting statistical models to control for the effect of size, this approach does not account for allometry and the intermediate outcome problem. We describe these problems and outline potential solutions.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Body Size*
Ecology / methods*
Models, Biological*
Models, Statistical
Phenotype*