This essay grew out of an examination of one-tailed significance testing. One-tailed tests were little advocated by the founders of modern statistics but are widely used and recommended nowadays in the biological, behavioral and social sciences. The high frequency of their use in ecology and animal behavior and their logical indefensibility have been documented in a companion review paper. In the present one, we trace the roots of this problem and counter some attacks on significance testing in general. Roots include: the early but irrational dichotomization of the P scale and adoption of the ‘significant/non-significant’ terminology; the mistaken notion that a high P value is evidence favoring the null hypothesis over the alternative hypothesis; and confusion over the distinction between statistical and research hypotheses. Resultant widespread misuse and misinterpretation of significance tests have also led to other problems, such as unjustifiable demands that reporting of P values be disallowed or greatly reduced and that reporting of confidence intervals and standardized effect sizes be required in their place. Our analysis of these matters thus leads us to a recommendation that for standard types of significance assessment the paleoFisherian and Neyman-Pearsonian paradigms be replaced by a neoFisherian one. The essence of the latter is that a critical α (probability of type I error) is not specified, the terms ‘significant’ and ‘non-significant’ are abandoned, that high P values lead only to suspended judgments, and that the so-called “three-valued logic” of Cox, Kaiser, Tukey, Tryon and Harris is adopted explicitly. Confidence intervals and bands, power analyses, and severity curves remain useful adjuncts in particular situations. Analyses conducted under this paradigm we term neoFisherian significance assessments (NFSA). Their role is assessment of the existence, sign and magnitude of statistical effects. The common label of null hypothesis significance tests (NHST) is retained for paleoFisherian and Neyman-Pearsonian approaches and their hybrids. The original Neyman-Pearson framework has no utility outside quality control type applications. Some advocates of Bayesian, likelihood and information-theoretic approaches to model selection have argued that P values and NFSAs are of little or no value, but those arguments do not withstand critical review. Champions of Bayesian methods in particular continue to overstate their value and relevance.

Addition of eggs to nests of conspecifics is a common avian alternative breeding strategy, called conspecific brood parasitism. The consequences of this breeding strategy on recipient breeding success have seldom been quantified, while taking into account environmental factors and host female characteristics. We study the occurrence of nest parasitism and, using an information theoretic approach, the most important factors responsible for nest desertion in female Barrow's goldeneyes (Bucephala islandica). Nest parasitism is common in the study populationpopulation, and 58% of the nests contained non-natal eggs, representing 20% of all eggs. A prime factor explaining nest desertion was the number of non-natal eggs. There were also significant effects of year and own clutch size. By contrast, ambient temperature and female laying date did not influence nest desertion. These results provide one of the first demonstrations that non-natal eggs can have substantial negative effects also in precocial species.

Birds that excavate their own cavities for breeding are traditionally considered to suffer little from nest predation. We reviewed the literature for nest predation rates, nest success, nest predator species and nest defence in European and North American woodpeckers. Prédation rate varied from zero to 0.35 (median = 0.13, n = 33 populations), while nest success varied from 0.42 to 1.00 (median = 0.80, n = 84). Daily nest predation rate increased, while daily nest survival rate did not change with species body weight. This suggests a role of cavity entrance size in passive nest defence and differential causes of nest failure between small and large species. Twenty three predator species preyed upon woodpecker nests. Woodpeckers defended their nests by attacking the predators, blocking the cavity entrance, and by the selection of safe habitat/cavity and timing of breeding. We conclude by discussing gaps in the literature regarding woodpecker nest predation.

Among cyclic populations of herbivores, inter-specific temporal synchrony has been attributed to both climatic factors and trophic interactions. In northern Europe, winter and autumnal moths undergo regular 9–11 year population cycles. The winter moth cycle has typically been phase-locked with that of the autumnal moth, but with a 1–3-year phase lag. We examined potential effects of natural enemies on this phase lag using field experiments and observational data. We found that larval parasitism was significantly higher in autumnal than in winter moths. Conversely, pupal predation by generalist invertebrates was clearly greater in winter than in autumnal moths. The difference in parasitism rates may contribute to the earlier collapse of the autumnal moth cycle. In addition, the phase lag may be strengthened by higher pupal mortality in winter moths in the early increase phase of the cycles. As a consequence, we put forward a hypothesis on reversed effects of natural enemies, providing a potential explanation for phase-lagged population cycles of these moth species.