A test of statistical techniques for detecting density dependence in sequential censuses of animal populations

Principal and reduced major axes, and Bulmer's (1975) tests have been suggested as methods for detecting the presence of density dependence in a series of population censuses that are unsuitable for analysis by alternative means e.g. by k-factor analysis. These alternative methods are tested using census data, some of which are previously unpublished, from natural populations known from independent evidence to be subject to density dependent processes. All the methods fail to detect density dependence reliably, irrespective of sample size and the dynamics of the population. We conclude that none of the methods tested is sufficiently reliable to be useful as a test of density dependence in sequential censues of animal populations.