https://doi.org/10.4081/gh.2023.1151

Impacts of sample ratio and size on the performance of random forest model to predict the potential distribution of snail habitats

Vol. 18 No. 2 (2023)
Submitted: 13 September 2022
Accepted: 8 February 2023
Published: 3 July 2023
Sample ratio, sample size, random forest model, snail habitats distributions
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Supplementary Materials: 34
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Authors

Yuanhua Liu
Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety of Ministry of Education, Department of Epidemiology and Health statistics, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Jun Zhang
Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety of Ministry of Education, Department of Epidemiology and Health statistics, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Michael P. Ward
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9921-4986
Sydney School of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
Wei Tu
Department of Geology and Geography, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, United States.
Lili Yu
Peace Center for Biostatistics, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, United States.
Jin Shi
Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety of Ministry of Education, Department of Epidemiology and Health statistics, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Yi Hu
Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety of Ministry of Education, Department of Epidemiology and Health statistics, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Fenghua Gao
Anhui Institute of Schistosomiasis Control, Hefei, China.
Zhiguo Cao
Anhui Institute of Schistosomiasis Control, Hefei, China.
Zhijie Zhang
epistat@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1276-787X
Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety of Ministry of Education, Department of Epidemiology and Health statistics, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Few studies have considered the impacts of sample size and sample ratio of presence and absence points on the results of random forest (RF) testing. We applied this technique for the prediction of the spatial distribution of snail habitats based on a total of 15,000 sample points (5,000 presence samples and 10,000 control points). RF models were built using seven different sample ratios (1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4, 2:1, 3:1, and 4:1) and the optimal ratio was identified via the Area Under the Curve (AUC) statistic. The impact of sample size was compared by RF models under the optimal ratio and the optimal sample size. When the sample size was small, the sampling ratios of 1:1, 1:2 and 1:3 were significantly better than the sample ratios of 4:1 and 3:1 at all four levels of sample sizes (p<0.01) and there was no significant difference among the ratios of 1:1, 1:2 and 1:3 (p>0.05). The sample ratio of 1:2 appeared to be optimal for a relatively large sample size with the lowest quartile deviation. In addition, increasing the sample size produced a higher AUC and a smaller slope and the most suitable sample size found in this study was 2400 (AUC=0.96). This study provides a feasible idea to select an appropriate sample size and sample ratio for ecological niche modelling (ENM) and also provides a scientific basis for the selection of samples to accurately identify and predict snail habitat distributions.

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How to Cite

Liu, Y., Zhang, J., P. Ward, M., Tu, W., Yu, L., Shi, J., Hu, Y., Gao, F., Cao, Z., & Zhang, Z. (2023). Impacts of sample ratio and size on the performance of random forest model to predict the potential distribution of snail habitats. Geospatial Health, 18(2). https://doi.org/10.4081/gh.2023.1151
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