Rapid assessment of populations trends of invasive species: Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA)

摘要

Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) is a powerful analytical approach for biodiversity management. Its main advantages are due to its intuitive processing and visualization, since mathematical workflow is conceptually similar to the widely accepted Principal Components Analysis. Detailed analyses of population trends with mathematical tools are often difficult to achieve for managers by a number of reasons (large numbers or areas monitored, large number of species, insufficient statistics skills, strong knowledge level in demographic analyses, etc.). SSA has been used since the 1970’s in signal processing to clarify signal vs. noisy information, but it has also been used in climate change analysis and other developmental areas. Besides, SSA is a rapid‐learning method for technicians and managers with medium level of mathematical knowledge. Free software in Unix environment is available. Unfortunately, no free and friendly software is available for Windows SO. Although R package may offer solutions for really advanced users, it does not fit real work situations for managers of biological invasions. Caterpillar (Gistat Group, Ltd) is by now, the best option found by the author in terms of price, facility for results interpretation and time consumed in learning. The main disadvantage is the poor content of tutorial files.