CURSAT ver. 2.1: A Simple, Resampling-Based, Program to Generate Pseudoreplicates of Data and Calculate Rarefaction Curves

Abstract

CURSAT ver. 2.1 is an open-source code in QB64 basic, compilable into an executable file, that produces n pseudoreplicates of an empirical data set. Both resamplings with and without replacement are allowed by the software. The number (n) of pseudoreplicates is set by the user. Pseudoreplicates can be exported in a file that can be opened by a spreadsheet. Thus, pseudoreplicates are permanently stored and available for the calculation of statistics of interest and associated variance. The software also uses the n pseudoreplicate data to reconstruct n accumulation matrices, appended in an output file. Accumulation has applicability in cases in which repeated sample-based data must be evaluated for exhaustiveness. Many situations involve repeated sampling from the same set of observations. For example, if data consist of species occurrence, the software can be used by a wide spectrum of specialists such as ecologists, zoologists, botanists, biogeographers, conservationists for biodiversity estimation. The software allows performing accumulation irrespectively whether the input data set contains abundance (quantitative) or incidence (binary) data. Accumulation matrices can be imported in statistical packages to estimate distributions of successive pooling of samples and depict accumulation and rarefaction curves with associated variance. CURSAT ver. 2.1 is released in two editions. Edition #1 is recommended for analysis, whereas Edition #2 generates a log file in which the flow of internal steps of resampling and accumulation routines is reported. Edition #2 is primarily designed for educational purposes and quality check. Funding statement: The software was developed with no specific funds.