title: Meta-analysis: synthesizing research findings in ecology and evolution.
abstract: The growing number of empirical studies performed in ecology and evolution creates a need for quantitative summaries of research domains to generate higher-order conclusions about general trends and patterns. Recent developments In meta-analysis (the area of statistics that is designed for summarizing and analyzing multiple independent studies) have opened up new and exciting possibilities. Unlike more traditional qualitative and narrative reviews, meta-analysis allows powerful quantitative analyses of the magnitude of effects and has a high degree of objectivity because it is based on a standardized set of statistical procedures. The first pioneering applications in ecology and evolution demonstrate that meta-analysis is both tractable and powerful.
authors.affiliation: Göran Arnqvist is at the Dept of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1091, USA; Dept of Animal Ecology, University of Umeå, S-90187 Umeå, Sweden.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Arnqvist
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wooster