Berryman Alan, Lima Mauricio
Emeritus Professor, Departments of Entomology and Natural Resource Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164, USA.
Ecology. 2007 Aug;88(8):2121-3. doi: 10.1890/06-0609.1.
Partial autocorrelation and partial rate correlation functions are frequently used to detect the order of the endogenous process generating an observed population time series. Here we uncover a problem with this approach: the diagnosis of spurious second order autocorrelation due to strong nonlinearity in a first order endogenous process, as exemplified by time series data from a population of Soay sheep. Causes and a possible solution are discussed.
