On the statistical significance of the Hutchinsonian size-ratio parameter

A technique is presented for the analysis of sets of morphological data to test whether sympatric, closely related species form geometric series (or Hutchinsonian series, where the constant of proportionality, h, is 1.30 for linear characteristics). A basic 2 parameter model is proposed. The logarithmically transformed version of the geometric model is used. The importance of using a method that intrinsically depends upon intraspecific variation is shown. The assumptions of many existing analyses that are based only upon means or their ratios, such as homoscedasticity and negligible variances. Only a small fraction of collections of syntopic series conformed to the geometric model, and of these, few had confidence intervals for h in which 1.30 was included