title: Modeling observed animal performance using the Weibull distribution.
abstract: To understand how organisms adapt, researchers must link performance and microhabitat. However, measuring performance, especially maximum performance, can sometimes be difficult. Here, we describe an improvement over previous techniques that only consider the largest observed values as maxima. Instead, we model expected performance observations via the Weibull distribution, a statistical approach that reduces the impact of rare observations. After calculating group-level weighted averages and variances by treating individuals separately to reduce pseudoreplication, our approach resulted in high statistical power despite small sample sizes. We fitted lizard adhesive performance and bite force data to the Weibull distribution and found that it closely estimated maximum performance in both cases, illustrating the generality of our approach. Using the Weibull distribution to estimate observed performance greatly improves upon previous techniques by facilitating power analyses and error estimations around robustly estimated maximum values.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83843, USA BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA tjhagey@uidaho.edu.
authors.forename: Travis J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Hagey
authors.affiliation: Biology Department, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR 97219, USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Puthoff
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK.
authors.forename: Kristen E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Crandell
authors.affiliation: Biology Department, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR 97219, USA.
authors.forename: Kellar
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Autumn
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83843, USA Department of Fish Ecology and Evolution, Eawag Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Center for Ecology, Evolution & Biogeochemistry, 6047 Kastanienbaum, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Luke J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Harmon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D001732:Bite Force; D008116:Lizards / Q000502:physiology; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical
keywords: Adhesion; Bite force; Gecko; Lizard; Maximum performance