NDLI: Same data, different analysts: variation in effect sizes due to analytical decisions in ecology and evolutionary biology

Content Provider	Springer Nature : BioMed Central
Author	Gould, Elliot Fraser, Hannah S. Parker, Timothy H. Nakagawa, Shinichi Griffith, Simon C. Vesk, Peter A. Fidler, Fiona Hamilton, Daniel G. Abbey-Lee, Robin N. Abbott, Jessica K. Aguirre, Luis A. Alcaraz, Carles Aloni, Irith Altschul, Drew Arekar, Kunal Atkins, Jeff W. Atkinson, Joe Baker, Christopher M. Barrett, Meghan Bell, Kristian Bello, Suleiman Kehinde Beltrán, Iván Berauer, Bernd J. Bertram, Michael Grant Billman, Peter D. Blake, Charlie K. Blake, Shannon Bliard, Louis Bonisoli-Alquati, Andrea Bonnet, Timothée Bordes, Camille Nina Marion Bose, Aneesh P. H. Botterill-James, Thomas Boyd, Melissa Anna Boyle, Sarah A. Bradfer-Lawrence, Tom Bradham, Jennifer Brand, Jack A. Brengdahl, Martin I. Bulla, Martin Bussière, Luc Camerlenghi, Ettore Campbell, Sara E. Campos, Leonardo L. F. Caravaggi, Anthony Cardoso, Pedro Carroll, Charles J. W. Catanach, Therese A. Chen, Xuan Chik, Heung Ying Janet Choy, Emily Sarah Christie, Alec Philip Chuang, Angela Chunco, Amanda J. Clark, Bethany L. Contina, Andrea Covernton, Garth A. Cox, Murray P. Cressman, Kimberly A. Crotti, Marco Crouch, Connor Davidson D’Amelio, Pietro B. de Sousa, Alexandra Allison Döbert, Timm Fabian Dobler, Ralph Dobson, Adam J. Doherty, Tim S. Drobniak, Szymon Marian Duffy, Alexandra Grace Duncan, Alison B. Dunn, Robert P. Dunning, Jamie Dutta, Trishna Eberhart-Hertel, Luke Elmore, Jared Alan Elsherif, Mahmoud Medhat English, Holly M. Ensminger, David C. Ernst, Ulrich Rainer Ferguson, Stephen M. Fernandez-Juricic, Esteban Ferreira-Arruda, Thalita Fieberg, John Finch, Elizabeth A. Fiorenza, Evan A. Fisher, David N. Fontaine, Amélie Forstmeier, Wolfgang Fourcade, Yoan Frank, Graham S. Freund, Cathryn A. Fuentes-Lillo, Eduardo Gandy, Sara L. Gannon, Dustin G. García-Cervigón, Ana I. Garretson, Alexis C. Ge, Xuezhen Geary, William L. Géron, Charly Gilles, Marc Girndt, Antje Gliksman, Daniel Goldspiel, Harrison B. Gomes, Dylan G. E. Good, Megan Kate Goslee, Sarah C. Gosnell, J. Stephen Grames, Eliza M. Gratton, Paolo Grebe, Nicholas M. Greenler, Skye M. Griffioen, Maaike Griffith, Daniel M. Griffith, Frances J. Grossman, Jake J. Güncan, Ali Haesen, Stef Hagan, James G. Hager, Heather A. Harris, Jonathan Philo Harrison, Natasha Dean Hasnain, Sarah Syedia Havird, Justin Chase Heaton, Andrew J. Herrera-Chaustre, María Laura Howard, Tanner J. Hsu, Bin-Yan Iannarilli, Fabiola Iranzo, Esperanza C. Iverson, Erik N. K. Jimoh, Saheed Olaide Johnson, Douglas H. Johnsson, Martin Jorna, Jesse Jucker, Tommaso Jung, Martin Kačergytė, Ineta Kaltz, Oliver Ke, Alison Kelly, Clint D. Keogan, Katharine Keppeler, Friedrich Wolfgang Killion, Alexander K. Kim, Dongmin Kochan, David P. Korsten, Peter Kothari, Shan Kuppler, Jonas Kusch, Jillian M. Lagisz, Malgorzata Lalla, Kristen Marianne Larkin, Daniel J. Larson, Courtney L. Lauck, Katherine S. Lauterbur, M. Elise Law, Alan Léandri-Breton, Don-Jean Lembrechts, Jonas J. L’Herpiniere, Kiara Lievens, Eva J. P. de Lima, Daniela Oliveira Lindsay, Shane Luquet, Martin MacLeod, Ross Macphie, Kirsty H. Magellan, Kit Mair, Magdalena M. Malm, Lisa E. Mammola, Stefano Mandeville, Caitlin P. Manhart, Michael Manrique-Garzon, Laura Milena Mäntylä, Elina Marchand, Philippe Marshall, Benjamin Michael Martin, Charles A. Martin, Dominic Andreas Martin, Jake Mitchell Martinig, April Robin McCallum, Erin S. McCauley, Mark McNew, Sabrina M. Meiners, Scott J. Merkling, Thomas Michelangeli, Marcus Moiron, Maria Moreira, Bruno Mortensen, Jennifer Mos, Benjamin Muraina, Taofeek Olatunbosun Murphy, Penelope Wrenn Nelli, Luca Niemelä, Petri Nightingale, Josh Nilsonne, Gustav Nolazco, Sergio Nooten, Sabine S. Novotny, Jessie Lanterman Olin, Agnes Birgitta Organ, Chris L. Ostevik, Kate L. Palacio, Facundo Xavier Paquet, Matthieu Parker, Darren James Pascall, David J. Pasquarella, Valerie J. Paterson, John Harold Payo-Payo, Ana Pedersen, Karen Marie Perez, Grégoire Perry, Kayla I. Pottier, Patrice Proulx, Michael J. Proulx, Raphaël Pruett, Jessica L Ramananjato, Veronarindra Randimbiarison, Finaritra Tolotra Razafindratsima, Onja H. Rennison, Diana J. Riva, Federico Riyahi, Sepand Roast, Michael James Rocha, Felipe Pereira Roche, Dominique G. Román-Palacios, Cristian Rosenberg, Michael S. Ross, Jessica Rowland, Freya E. Rugemalila, Deusdedith Russell, Avery L. Ruuskanen, Suvi Saccone, Patrick Sadeh, Asaf Salazar, Stephen M. Sales, Kris Salmón, Pablo Sánchez-Tójar, Alfredo Santos, Leticia Pereira Santostefano, Francesca Schilling, Hayden T. Schmidt, Marcus Schmoll, Tim Schneider, Adam C. Schrock, Allie E. Schroeder, Julia Schtickzelle, Nicolas Schultz, Nick L. Scott, Drew A. Scroggie, Michael Peter Shapiro, Julie Teresa Sharma, Nitika Shearer, Caroline L. Simón, Diego Sitvarin, Michael I. Skupien, Fabrício Luiz Slinn, Heather Lea Smith, Grania Polly Smith, Jeremy A. Sollmann, Rahel Whitney, Kaitlin Stack Still, Shannon Michael Stuber, Erica F. Sutton, Guy F. Swallow, Ben Taff, Conor Claverie Takola, Elina Tanentzap, Andrew J. Tarjuelo, Rocío Telford, Richard J. Thawley, Christopher J. Thierry, Hugo Thomson, Jacqueline Tidau, Svenja Tompkins, Emily M. Tortorelli, Claire Marie Trlica, Andrew Turnell, Biz R. Urban, Lara Van de Vondel, Stijn van der Wal, Jessica Eva Megan Van Eeckhoven, Jens van Oordt, Francis Vanderwel, K. Michelle Vanderwel, Mark C. Vanderwolf, Karen J. Vélez, Juliana Vergara-Florez, Diana Carolina Verrelli, Brian C. Vieira, Marcus Vinícius Villamil, Nora Vitali, Valerio Vollering, Julien Walker, Jeffrey Walker, Xanthe J. Walter, Jonathan A. Waryszak, Pawel Weaver, Ryan J. Wedegärtner, Ronja E. M. Weller, Daniel L. Whelan, Shannon White, Rachel Louise Wolfson, David William Wood, Andrew Yanco, Scott W. Yen, Jian D. L. Youngflesh, Casey Zilio, Giacomo Zimmer, Cédric Zimmerman, Gregory Mark Zitomer, Rachel A.
Abstract	Although variation in effect sizes and predicted values among studies of similar phenomena is inevitable, such variation far exceeds what might be produced by sampling error alone. One possible explanation for variation among results is differences among researchers in the decisions they make regarding statistical analyses. A growing array of studies has explored this analytical variability in different fields and has found substantial variability among results despite analysts having the same data and research question. Many of these studies have been in the social sciences, but one small “many analyst” study found similar variability in ecology. We expanded the scope of this prior work by implementing a large-scale empirical exploration of the variation in effect sizes and model predictions generated by the analytical decisions of different researchers in ecology and evolutionary biology. We used two unpublished datasets, one from evolutionary ecology (blue tit, Cyanistes caeruleus, to compare sibling number and nestling growth) and one from conservation ecology (Eucalyptus, to compare grass cover and tree seedling recruitment). The project leaders recruited 174 analyst teams, comprising 246 analysts, to investigate the answers to prespecified research questions. Analyses conducted by these teams yielded 141 usable effects (compatible with our meta-analyses and with all necessary information provided) for the blue tit dataset, and 85 usable effects for the Eucalyptus dataset. We found substantial heterogeneity among results for both datasets, although the patterns of variation differed between them. For the blue tit analyses, the average effect was convincingly negative, with less growth for nestlings living with more siblings, but there was near continuous variation in effect size from large negative effects to effects near zero, and even effects crossing the traditional threshold of statistical significance in the opposite direction. In contrast, the average relationship between grass cover and Eucalyptus seedling number was only slightly negative and not convincingly different from zero, and most effects ranged from weakly negative to weakly positive, with about a third of effects crossing the traditional threshold of significance in one direction or the other. However, there were also several striking outliers in the Eucalyptus dataset, with effects far from zero. For both datasets, we found substantial variation in the variable selection and random effects structures among analyses, as well as in the ratings of the analytical methods by peer reviewers, but we found no strong relationship between any of these and deviation from the meta-analytic mean. In other words, analyses with results that were far from the mean were no more or less likely to have dissimilar variable sets, use random effects in their models, or receive poor peer reviews than those analyses that found results that were close to the mean. The existence of substantial variability among analysis outcomes raises important questions about how ecologists and evolutionary biologists should interpret published results, and how they should conduct analyses in the future.
Related Links	https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12915-024-02101-x.pdf
Ending Page	36
Page Count	36
Starting Page	1
File Format	HTM / HTML
ISSN	17417007
DOI	10.1186/s12915-024-02101-x
Journal	BMC Biology
Issue Number	1
Volume Number	23
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2025-02-06
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Life Sciences Analytical heterogeneity Metascience Many-analyst Replication crisis Reproducibility
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Structural Biology Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology Plant Science Biotechnology Physiology Agricultural and Biological Sciences Cell Biology Developmental Biology
Journal Impact Factor	4.4/2023
5-Year Journal Impact Factor	5.4/2023

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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