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Test of independency in a contingency table for spatial variables

2 messages · Agustin Lobo, Marcelino de la Cruz

#
Dear list,

I've classified a set of points according
to two different sets of descriptors (assume
a set of descriptors is biological, the other set environmental) into
N and M classes respectively, thus I have
2 vectors V1 and V2 recording each classification.
I've made a contingency table
conti <- table(V1,V2) of dimensions NxM

summary(conti) provides the chi statistic
to test for independence of both classifications,
but, I suspect, if I'm classifying points
the test should take spatial autocorrelation
into account. Which test would be appropriate?
The idea that comes to my mind is to randomize
the values of the descriptors among the points
and use a Monte Carlo approach. Is there any other
way?

Thanks!
#
It seems to me that this can be analysed 
with  Syrjala's test [Syrjala, S. E. 1996, A 
Statistical Test for a Difference between the 
Spatial Distributions of Two Populations. Ecology, 77(1): 75-80]

I have some experimental code to run this test, in case you are interrested.

Regards,

Marcelino
At 22:03 02/04/2008, Agustin Lobo wrote:
________________________________

Marcelino de la Cruz Rot

Departamento de  Biolog?a Vegetal
E.U.T.I. Agr?cola
Universidad Polit?cnica de Madrid
28040-Madrid
Tel.: 91 336 54 35
Fax: 91 336 56 56
marcelino.delacruz at upm.es