0444162 20240103210104.720150609235959.9 000356731300069 84934949836 10.1073/pnas.1505882112 16 s. E cav_un_epca*02575000027-842411225 (2015)7755-7760National Academy of Sciences fluctuation scaling multiplicative growth power law environmental stochasticity Markovian environment cav_un_auth*0314085 Giometto A. CH 20 cav_un_auth*0316935 Formentin Marco Stochastická informatika Department of Stochastic Informatics SI SI UTIA-B Department of Stochastic Informatics 20 Ústav teorie informace a automatizace AV ČR, v. v. i. cav_un_auth*0317332 Rinaldo A. CH cav_un_auth*0317333 Cohen J. US 20 cav_un_auth*0317334 Maritan A. IT 20 http://library.utia.cas.cz/separaty/2015/SI/formentin-0444162.pdf GAP201/12/2613 GA ČR cav_un_auth*0291241 Taylor’s law (TL) states that the variance V of a nonnegative random variable is a power function of its mean M; i.e., V =aM^b. TL has been verified extensively in ecology, where it applies to population abundance, physics, and other natural sciences. Its ubiquitous empirical verification suggests a context-independent mechanism. Sample exponents b measured empirically via the scaling of sample mean and variance typically cluster around the value b=2. Some theoretical models of population growth, however, predict a broad range of values for the population exponent b pertaining to the mean and variance of population density, depending on details of the growth process. Is the widely reported sample exponent b=2 the result of ecological processes or could it be a statistical artifact? Here, we apply large deviations theory and finite-sample arguments to show exactly that in a broad class of growth models the sample exponent is b=2 regardless of the underlying population exponent. 2016 BA 5 RVO:67985556 http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0247117 cav_un_auth*0316939 University of Padova IT cav_un_auth*0316940 École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne CH cav_un_auth*0316941 The Rockefeller University US S MULTIDISCIPLINARYSCIENCES 10.285 1.984 8.7 1.32197 4.682 593284 6.814 Q1 9.131 3281 Q1 87.814 94.4 Q1 Q1 94.444 2015 84934949836 SCOPUS 000356731300069 WOS cav_un_epca*0257500 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 0027-8424 1091-6490 Roč. 112 č. 25 2015 7755 7760 National Academy of Sciences