Mühlbauer Lina K, Schulze Maximilienne, Harpole W Stanley, Clark Adam T
Institute of Biology Martin Luther University Halle Germany.
Department of Physiological Diversity Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) Leipzig Germany.
Ecol Evol. 2020 Oct 26;10(23):13275-13283. doi: 10.1002/ece3.6926. eCollection 2020 Dec.
Point 1: The ecological models of Alfred J. Lotka and Vito Volterra have had an enormous impact on ecology over the past century. Some of the earliest-and clearest-experimental tests of these models were famously conducted by Georgy Gause in the 1930s. Although well known, the data from these experiments are not widely available and are often difficult to analyze using standard statistical and computational tools. Point 2: Here, we introduce the gauseR package, a collection of tools for fitting Lotka-Volterra models to time series data of one or more species. The package includes several methods for parameter estimation and optimization, and includes 42 datasets from Gause's species interaction experiments and related work. Additionally, we include with this paper a short blog post discussing the historical importance of these data and models, and an R vignette with a walk-through introducing the package methods. The package is available for download at github.com/adamtclark/gauseR. Point 3: To demonstrate the package, we apply it to several classic experimental studies from Gause, as well as two other well-known datasets on multi-trophic dynamics on Isle Royale, and in spatially structured mite populations. In almost all cases, models fit observations closely and fitted parameter values make ecological sense. Point 4: Taken together, we hope that the methods, data, and analyses that we present here provide a simple and user-friendly way to interact with complex ecological data. We are optimistic that these methods will be especially useful to students and educators who are studying ecological dynamics, as well as researchers who would like a fast tool for basic analyses.
观点1：在过去的一个世纪里，阿尔弗雷德·J·洛特卡和维托·沃尔泰拉的生态模型对生态学产生了巨大影响。这些模型最早且最清晰的一些实验测试是由格奥尔基·高斯在20世纪30年代著名地进行的。尽管广为人知，但这些实验的数据并未广泛可得，并且使用标准统计和计算工具进行分析往往很困难。观点2：在这里，我们介绍gauseR软件包，这是一组用于将洛特卡 - 沃尔泰拉模型拟合到一个或多个物种的时间序列数据的工具。该软件包包括几种参数估计和优化方法，并包含来自高斯物种相互作用实验及相关工作的42个数据集。此外，我们在本文中还附上了一篇简短的博客文章，讨论这些数据和模型的历史重要性，以及一个带有软件包方法介绍的R小插图。该软件包可在github.com/adamtclark/gauseR上下载。观点3：为了演示该软件包，我们将其应用于高斯的几个经典实验研究，以及另外两个关于罗亚尔岛多营养动态和空间结构螨虫种群的著名数据集。在几乎所有情况下，模型都能很好地拟合观测值，并且拟合的参数值具有生态学意义。观点4：综上所述，我们希望我们在此展示的方法、数据和分析提供一种简单且用户友好的方式来与复杂的生态数据进行交互。我们乐观地认为，这些方法对于研究生态动态的学生和教育工作者，以及希望获得快速基础分析工具的研究人员将特别有用。
