Analysis of finite mixture of distributions: a statistical tool for biological classification problems.

A microcomputer program to analyze finite mixtures of normal, binomial, Poisson or exponential distributions by a maximum likelihood estimation procedure is described. The program is coded in Turbo Pascal. Some theoretical and practical aspects of the compound distributions are discussed, mainly mathematical characteristics, fitting procedures and tests of hypotheses. The statistical tool, which is a cluster analysis technique, is presented in a general context for applications in biology. In particular an ecological example is briefly described: the age class structure resolution of a white-tailed deer population. To improve the usefulness for classification purposes, the link with discriminant analysis is examined. For a successful analysis of finite mixture of distributions the need for a large sample size is emphasized.