New Method of Description of Eddy-Covariance Ecologic Data

Abstract

In this paper, the authors propose the foundations of an original theory of quasi-reproducible experiments (QREs) based on the testable hypothesis that there exists an essential correlation (memory) between successive measurements. From this hypothesis, which the authors call for brevity as the verified partial correlation principle (VPCP), it can be proved that there exists a universal fitting function (UFF) for quasi-reproducible (QR) measurements. In other words, there is some common platform or bridge across which, figuratively speaking, a true theory (claiming to describe data from first principles or verifiable models) and an experiment offering this theory for verification of measured data, maximally cleaned from the influence of uncontrollable factors and apparatus/software function, meet. Actually, the proposed theory provides the potential researcher with a method of the purification of initial data, finally suggesting a curve that describes the data, is periodic, and is cleaned from a set of uncontrollable factors. The final curve corresponds to an ideal experiment. The proposed theory has been tested on eddy-covariance ecological data related to the content of CH4, CO2, and H2O in the local atmosphere, where the corresponding detectors for measuring of the desired gases content are located. For these tested eddy-covariance data associated with the presence of CH4, CO2, and H2O vapor in the atmosphere there is no simple hypothesis containing a minimal number of the fitting parameters, and, therefore, the fitting function that follows from this theory can serve as the only and most reliable quantitative description of this kind of data that belongs to the tested complex system. We should also note that the final fitting function that is removed from uncontrollable factors becomes purely periodic and corresponds to an ideal experiment. Applications of this theory to practical applications, its place among other alternative approaches (especially touching the professional interests of ecologists), and its further development are discussed in the paper.