NCJ Number
139760
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 37 Issue: 6 Dated: (November 1992) Pages: 1489-1513
Date Published
1992
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This article proposes a set of statistical protocols for the analysis of carrion-arthropod succession in forensic entomology investigations.
Abstract
A total of 23 carrion-arthropod data sets from temperate, tropical, desert, and coastal environments were assembled in a standard format and analyzed by the use of randomization tests and methods derived from quantitative community ecology. The data were analyzed in three ways. First, patterns of arthropod visitation on nonhuman carcasses were analyzed in each of the 23 cases. Second, temporal changes in the taxonomic composition of the carrion-arthropod community were studied by quantifying the degree of taxonomic similarity between pairwise combinations of time-specific samples of the succession. Third, Monte Carlo simulation was applied to each of the 23 assemblages to test specific hypotheses about communitywide patterns of arthropod visitation times on nonhuman carcasses. Findings from each of these methods are reported. Possible uses of these methods to detect or validate claims of between-site, between-treatment, or between-taxon differences in carcass decay rates are also discussed. The proposed methods and their findings may prove useful to forensic entomologists in hypothesis testing, field studies of carrion-arthropod succession, and time-of-death estimates for human remains. 3 tables, 5 figures, and 42 references