caa a22 4500 469097043 CHVBK 20180323133034.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170328e19920401xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF00317157 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF00317157 Roa Rubén Instituto de Fomento Pesquero (IFOP), Casilla 347, Talcahuano, Chile aut Design and analysis of multiple-choice feeding-preference experiments [Elektronische Daten] [Rubén Roa] Summary: A serious omission in ecological methodology is the absence of a rigorous statistical procedure to analyse multiple-choice feeding-preference experiments. A sample of 21 studies in the littoral marine context shows that results from such experiments are used to study a variety of conceptual issues, ranging from nutritional biology to ecosystem dynamics. A majority of such studies have been incorrectly analysed. The analytical problem has two facets: (1) lack of independence in the simultaneous offer of food types and (2) the existence of autogenic changes particular to each food type. Problem (2) requires the use of control arenas without the consumer. A recent advance allows the rigorous analysis of experiments with two food types offered simultaneously. Here I propose a method for the multiple-choice case. For the first problem I suggest the use of multivariate statistical analysis, providing both a parametric and a nonparametric procedure. The second problem is solved using basic statistical theory. I analyse data from an experiment with the sea urchin Tetrapygus niger feeding on three species of algae: Ulva nematoidea, Gymnogongrus furcellatus, and Macrocystis pyrifera. The parametric and nonparametric procedures yielded similar results, and showed that when offered the three species of algae T. niger does not feed at random but shows a preference for U. nematoidea. The method requires that the number of replicates in the treatment and control arenas be the same, and greater than the number of food types. The method is useful for other kinds of multiple-choice experiments. Springer-Verlag, 1992 Food preference nationallicence Habitat selection nationallicence Experimental design nationallicence Multivariate analysis nationallicence Sea urchins nationallicence Oecologia Springer-Verlag 89/4(1992-04-01), 509-515 0029-8549 89:4<509 1992 89 442 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00317157 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00317157 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Roa Rubén Instituto de Fomento Pesquero (IFOP), Casilla 347, Talcahuano, Chile aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Oecologia Springer-Verlag 89/4(1992-04-01), 509-515 0029-8549 89:4<509 1992 89 442 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer