A note on the use of multiple linear regression in molecular ecology
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Multiple linear regression analyses (also often referred to as generalized linear models--GLMs, or generalized linear mixed models--GLMMs) are widely used in the analysis of data in molecular ecology, often to assess the relative effects of genetic characteristics on individual fitness or traits, or how environmental characteristics influence patterns of genetic differentiation. However, the coefficients resulting from multiple regression analyses are sometimes misinterpreted, which can lead to incorrect interpretations and conclusions within individual studies, and can propagate to wider-spread errors in the general understanding of a topic. The primary issue revolves around the interpretation of coefficients for independent variables when interaction terms are also included in the analyses. In this scenario, the coefficients associated with each independent variable are often interpreted as the independent effect of each predictor variable on the predicted variable. However, this interpretation is incorrect. The correct interpretation is that these coefficients represent the effect of each predictor variable on the predicted variable when all other predictor variables are zero. This difference may sound subtle, but the ramifications cannot be overstated. Here, my goals are to raise awareness of this issue, to demonstrate and emphasize the problems that can result and to provide alternative approaches for obtaining the desired information.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.132 | 0.208 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.021 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.015 |
| Open science | 0.007 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.007 | 0.030 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.006 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".