Statistical analysis of occupancy rates for overdispersed populations by redistribution procedures: Application to the european corn borer EGG masses distribution

Summary Standard statistical analyses of distributions of individuals from contingency tables are generally invalid if the individuals are not distributed independently of each other. In this paper, we discuss a method of testing hypotheses about classification category occupancy rates for overdispersed population or for population whose individuals are distributed by groups rather than lonely. These methods are based on population redistribution simulations and provide valid, exact and powerful tests in situations for which classical methods are not appropriate. Illustrations are given from the European Corn Borer eggs data.