On A Statistical Test to Detect Spatial Pattern

In the analysis of spatial patterns, the most extensively used index of dispersion is s²/m in which s² and m are respectively the sample variance and sample mean of the count x in each sample unit. For statistical testing, the statistic I' = (n — 1) s²/m has been introduced since it has an approximate X 2n−1 distribution under the null hypothesis that individuals are distributed randomly. The main problem with the use of index I' is that the random distribution and the superdispersed distribution are not distinguished. In this paper, we have tried to induce a new statistical method for the detection of spatial pattern, based on the special characteristic of Poisson distribution that both of the m and s² are the unbiased estimates of the parameter.