Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41006669›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2025

Robust inference and errors in studies of wildlife control.

Adrian Treves, Igor Khorozyan

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing 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

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Gold-standard experiments to deter predators from attacking farm animals.Animal frontiers : the review magazine of animal agriculture · 2024
    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

2 authors.

Adrian TrevesUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. atreves@wisc.edu.
Igor KhorozyanIndependent Consultant, Göttingen, Germany.

Funding

OECD Co-operative Research Programme: Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems 2022
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Randomized, controlled trials (RCT) are seen as the strongest basis for causal inference, but their strengths of inference and error rates relative to other study designs have never been quantified for interventions designed to prevent wildlife damage to property and game. We simulate common study designs from simple correlation to RCT with crossover design. We report rates of false positive, false negative, and over-estimation of treatment effects for five common study designs under various confounding interactions and effect sizes. We find non-randomized study designs mostly unreliable and that randomized designs with suitable safeguards against biases have much lower error rates. One implication is that virtually all studies of lethal interventions against predatory wildlife appear unreliable. Generally, applied fields can benefit from more robust designs against the common confounding effects we simulated.

Indexed as

Animals, WildConservation of Natural ResourcesAnimalsComputer SimulationRandomized Controlled Trials as TopicResearch Design

Identifiers

PMID41006669
PMCPMC12475270

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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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.