Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29769362›Full record

ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2018

Reverse-engineering ecological theory from data.

Benjamin T Martin, Stephan B Munch, Andrew M Hein

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Technical sophistication is not evidence.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  2. Article
  3. A synergistic future for AI and ecology.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Benjamin T MartinSouthwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 110 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA benjamin.martin@noaa.gov.ORCID 0000-0003-3927-0449
Stephan B MunchSouthwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 110 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA.
Andrew M HeinSouthwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 110 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA andrew.hein@noaa.gov.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Ecologists have long sought to understand the dynamics of populations and communities by deriving mathematical theory from first principles. Theoretical models often take the form of dynamical equations that comprise the ecological processes (e.g. competition, predation) believed to govern system dynamics. The inverse of this approach-inferring which processes and ecological interactions drive observed dynamics-remains an open problem in ecology. Here, we propose a way to attack this problem using a machine learning method known as

Indexed as

Machine LearningModels, BiologicalEcologyecological predictionforecastingmulti-model inferencepopulation dynamicstheoretical ecologytime-series analysis

Identifiers

PMID29769362
PMCPMC5966606

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.