Table 1 Hypotheses regarding when moving to ROI methods will improve agreement levels

From: Factoring economic costs into conservation planning may not improve agreement over priorities for protection

Hypothesis: ROI Agreement>Benefit Agreement when:

Simulation results

Test statistic for case study

H1: cost data are more variable than benefit data (larger coefficient of variation).

Supported

β 1 = 0.19, 95% CI = 0.11, 0.28, p < 0.001, n = 55

H2: the two benefit metrics B 1 and B 2 are weakly or negatively correlated.

Supported

β 2 = −0.41, 95% CI = −0.58, −0.24, p < 0.001, n = 55

H3: the benefit of protecting sites is negatively correlated with the costs involved.

Supported for most of parameter space

β 3 = −0.09, 95% CI = −0.37, 0.19, p = 0.531, n = 55

  1. Hypotheses regarding when agreement levels for ROI-based prioritizations will be larger than agreement levels for prioritizations based only on ecological benefits. We examined these hypotheses with simulations and multiple regressions tests applied to case study data. Test statistics in column 3 are based on estimating multiple regression equation in Eq. (1) and relying on one-tailed, permutation tests to evaluate significance
  2. ROI return-on-investment, CI confidence interval
Back to article page