Small fish community structure in Ozark streams: improvements in the statistical analysis of presence-absence data [Occurrence and abundance patterns, USA]

Matthew's (1982) statistical tests for nonrandom species occurrence and abundance patterns among small fish (minnow) communities in Ozark streams are improved. The data for such tests are standardized as a binary presence-absence matrix. Because the presence-absence matrix is a single, small, unreplicated record of species occurrences, the sampling of sites and species for probabilistic colonization models should occur without replacement, rather than with replacement, of sites and species to the original data set. The authors discuss the effect of differences in sampling design and sample size upon the calculation of three different probabilistic expectations: the number of sample sites co-occupied by pairs of species; the number of sites occupied by a given number of species, and the number of sample sites shared by a given number of species.