There are really no set ways to determine a changepoint, since a changepoint depends completely on what you decide. Recursive partitioning will fit a best changepoint, but it will pretty much always fit one. This function can be found in the package rpart:
> fit <- rpart(count ~ year, control = list(maxdepth = 1)) > summary(fit) However this measure offers no level of confidence. This is where packages like strucchange and party come into use, as they provide measures of confidence. Alternatively, you could look into regression-based methods where the changepoint is some parameter. Piecewise regression, for instance, is as simple as fitting a spline of degree 1 and changepoint X: > library(splines) > fit <- lm(count ~ bs(year, knots = X, degree = 1)) > plot(year, count) > lines(year, fitted(fit)) Then you can fit a regression at each year and compare. Alternatively, since count data is often noisy, you could easily substitute quantile regression for linear regression to much of the same effect (assuming whatever tau you decide, I used 0.8 but this is arbitrary): > library(splines) > library(quantreg) > fit <- rq(count ~ bs(year, knots = X, degree = 1), tau = 0.8) > plot(year, count) > lines(year, fitted(fit)) -------------------------------------- Jonathan P. Daily Technician - USGS Leetown Science Center 11649 Leetown Road Kearneysville WV, 25430 (304) 724-4480 "Is the room still a room when its empty? Does the room, the thing itself have purpose? Or do we, what's the word... imbue it." - Jubal Early, Firefly r-help-boun...@r-project.org wrote on 11/16/2010 05:30:49 PM: > [image removed] > > [R] Population abundance, change point > > Nicholas M. Caruso > > to: > > r-help > > 11/16/2010 05:32 PM > > Sent by: > > r-help-boun...@r-project.org > > I am trying to understand my population abundance data and am looking into > analyses of change point to try and determine, at approximately what point > do populations begin to change (either decline or increasing). > > Can anyone offer suggestions on ways to go about this? > > I have looked into bcp and strucchange packages but am not completely > convinced that these are appropriate for my data. > > Here is an example of what type of data I have > Year of survey (continuous variable) 1960 - 2009 (there are gaps in the > surveys (e.g., there were no surveys from 2002-2004) > Relative abundance of salamanders during the survey periods > > > Thanks for your help, Nick > > -- > Nicholas M Caruso > Graduate Student > CLFS-Biology > 4219 Biology-Psychology Building > University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-5815 > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > I learned something of myself in the woods today, > and walked out pleased for having made the acquaintance. > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.