Same data, different analysts: variation in effect sizes due to analytical decisions in ecology and evolutionary biology
2025
Elliot Gould | Hannah S. Fraser | Timothy H. Parker | Shinichi Nakagawa | Simon C. Griffith | Peter A. Vesk | Fiona Fidler | Daniel G. Hamilton | Robin N. Abbey-Lee | Jessica K. Abbott | Luis A. Aguirre | Carles Alcaraz | Irith Aloni | Drew Altschul | Kunal Arekar | Jeff W. Atkins | Joe Atkinson | Christopher M. Baker | Meghan Barrett | Kristian Bell | Suleiman Kehinde Bello | Iván Beltrán | Bernd J. Berauer | Michael Grant Bertram | Peter D. Billman | Charlie K. Blake | Shannon Blake | Louis Bliard | Andrea Bonisoli-Alquati | Timothée Bonnet | Camille Nina Marion Bordes | Aneesh P. H. Bose | Thomas Botterill-James | Melissa Anna Boyd | Sarah A. Boyle | Tom Bradfer-Lawrence | Jennifer Bradham | Jack A. Brand | Martin I. Brengdahl | Martin Bulla | Luc Bussière | Ettore Camerlenghi | Sara E. Campbell | Leonardo L. F. Campos | Anthony Caravaggi | Pedro Cardoso | Charles J. W. Carroll | Therese A. Catanach | Xuan Chen | Heung Ying Janet Chik | Emily Sarah Choy | Alec Philip Christie | Angela Chuang | Amanda J. Chunco | Bethany L. Clark | Andrea Contina | Garth A. Covernton | Murray P. Cox | Kimberly A. Cressman | Marco Crotti | Connor Davidson Crouch | Pietro B. D’Amelio | Alexandra Allison de Sousa | Timm Fabian Döbert | Ralph Dobler | Adam J. Dobson | Tim S. Doherty | Szymon Marian Drobniak | Alexandra Grace Duffy | Alison B. Duncan | Robert P. Dunn | Jamie Dunning | Trishna Dutta | Luke Eberhart-Hertel | Jared Alan Elmore | Mahmoud Medhat Elsherif | Holly M. English | David C. Ensminger | Ulrich Rainer Ernst | Stephen M. Ferguson | Esteban Fernandez-Juricic | Thalita Ferreira-Arruda | John Fieberg | Elizabeth A. Finch | Evan A. Fiorenza | David N. Fisher | Amélie Fontaine | Wolfgang Forstmeier | Yoan Fourcade | Graham S. Frank | Cathryn A. Freund | Eduardo Fuentes-Lillo | Sara L. Gandy | Dustin G. Gannon | Ana I. García-Cervigón | Alexis C. Garretson | Xuezhen Ge | William L. Geary | Charly Géron | Marc Gilles | Antje Girndt | Daniel Gliksman | Harrison B. Goldspiel | Dylan G. E. Gomes | Megan Kate Good | Sarah C. Goslee | J. Stephen Gosnell | Eliza M. Grames | Paolo Gratton | Nicholas M. Grebe | Skye M. Greenler | Maaike Griffioen | Daniel M. Griffith | Frances J. Griffith | Jake J. Grossman | Ali Güncan | Stef Haesen | James G. Hagan | Heather A. Hager | Jonathan Philo Harris | Natasha Dean Harrison | Sarah Syedia Hasnain | Justin Chase Havird | Andrew J. Heaton | María Laura Herrera-Chaustre | Tanner J. Howard | Bin-Yan Hsu | Fabiola Iannarilli | Esperanza C. Iranzo | Erik N. K. Iverson | Saheed Olaide Jimoh | Douglas H. Johnson | Martin Johnsson | Jesse Jorna | Tommaso Jucker | Martin Jung | Ineta Kačergytė | Oliver Kaltz | Alison Ke | Clint D. Kelly | Katharine Keogan | Friedrich Wolfgang Keppeler | Alexander K. Killion | Dongmin Kim | David P. Kochan | Peter Korsten | Shan Kothari | Jonas Kuppler | Jillian M. Kusch | Malgorzata Lagisz | Kristen Marianne Lalla | Daniel J. Larkin | Courtney L. Larson | Katherine S. Lauck | M. Elise Lauterbur | Alan Law | Don-Jean Léandri-Breton | Jonas J. Lembrechts | Kiara L’Herpiniere | Eva J. P. Lievens | Daniela Oliveira de Lima | Shane Lindsay | Martin Luquet | Ross MacLeod | Kirsty H. Macphie | Kit Magellan | Magdalena M. Mair | Lisa E. Malm | Stefano Mammola | Caitlin P. Mandeville | Michael Manhart | Laura Milena Manrique-Garzon | Elina Mäntylä | Philippe Marchand | Benjamin Michael Marshall | Charles A. Martin | Dominic Andreas Martin | Jake Mitchell Martin | April Robin Martinig | Erin S. McCallum | Mark McCauley | Sabrina M. McNew | Scott J. Meiners | Thomas Merkling | Marcus Michelangeli | Maria Moiron | Bruno Moreira | Jennifer Mortensen | Benjamin Mos | Taofeek Olatunbosun Muraina | Penelope Wrenn Murphy | Luca Nelli | Petri Niemelä | Josh Nightingale | Gustav Nilsonne | Sergio Nolazco | Sabine S. Nooten | Jessie Lanterman Novotny | Agnes Birgitta Olin | Chris L. Organ | Kate L. Ostevik | Facundo Xavier Palacio | Matthieu Paquet | Darren James Parker | David J. Pascall | Valerie J. Pasquarella | John Harold Paterson | Ana Payo-Payo | Karen Marie Pedersen | Grégoire Perez | Kayla I. Perry | Patrice Pottier | Michael J. Proulx | Raphaël Proulx | Jessica L Pruett | Veronarindra Ramananjato | Finaritra Tolotra Randimbiarison | Onja H. Razafindratsima | Diana J. Rennison | Federico Riva | Sepand Riyahi | Michael James Roast | Felipe Pereira Rocha | Dominique G. Roche | Cristian Román-Palacios | Michael S. Rosenberg | Jessica Ross | Freya E. Rowland | Deusdedith Rugemalila | Avery L. Russell | Suvi Ruuskanen | Patrick Saccone | Asaf Sadeh | Stephen M. Salazar | Kris Sales | Pablo Salmón | Alfredo Sánchez-Tójar | Leticia Pereira Santos | Francesca Santostefano | Hayden T. Schilling | Marcus Schmidt | Tim Schmoll | Adam C. Schneider | Allie E. Schrock | Julia Schroeder | Nicolas Schtickzelle | Nick L. Schultz | Drew A. Scott | Michael Peter Scroggie | Julie Teresa Shapiro | Nitika Sharma | Caroline L. Shearer | Diego Simón | Michael I. Sitvarin | Fabrício Luiz Skupien | Heather Lea Slinn | Grania Polly Smith | Jeremy A. Smith | Rahel Sollmann | Kaitlin Stack Whitney | Shannon Michael Still | Erica F. Stuber | Guy F. Sutton | Ben Swallow | Conor Claverie Taff | Elina Takola | Andrew J. Tanentzap | Rocío Tarjuelo | Richard J. Telford | Christopher J. Thawley | Hugo Thierry | Jacqueline Thomson | Svenja Tidau | Emily M. Tompkins | Claire Marie Tortorelli | Andrew Trlica | Biz R. Turnell | Lara Urban | Stijn Van de Vondel | Jessica Eva Megan van der Wal | Jens Van Eeckhoven | Francis van Oordt | K. Michelle Vanderwel | Mark C. Vanderwel | Karen J. Vanderwolf | Juliana Vélez | Diana Carolina Vergara-Florez | Brian C. Verrelli | Marcus Vinícius Vieira | Nora Villamil | Valerio Vitali | Julien Vollering | Jeffrey Walker | Xanthe J. Walker | Jonathan A. Walter | Pawel Waryszak | Ryan J. Weaver | Ronja E. M. Wedegärtner | Daniel L. Weller | Shannon Whelan | Rachel Louise White | David William Wolfson | Andrew Wood | Scott W. Yanco | Jian D. L. Yen | Casey Youngflesh | Giacomo Zilio | Cédric Zimmer | Gregory Mark Zimmerman | Rachel A. Zitomer
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.
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