About the Authors

Daniel J. Mayor

dan.mayor@abdn.ac.uk

Affiliation Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Oceanlab, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Barry Thornton

Affiliation The James Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Alain F. Zuur

Affiliation Highland Statistics Ltd., Newburgh, Aberdeenshire, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

DM and BT have declared that no competing interests exist. AZ is affiliated with Highland Statistics Ltd and can confirm there are no patents, products in development or marketed products related to this manuscript. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: DM. Performed the experiments: DM. Analyzed the data: DM AZ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: DM BT. Wrote the paper: DM BT AZ.