Reanalysis shows the extreme decline effect does not exist in fish ocean acidification studies

Abstract

A meta-analysis published in PLoS Biology by Clements et al. (2022) claims there is an extreme decline effect in studies published between 2009-2019 on the impacts of ocean acidification (OA) on fish behaviour. Here I show that the extreme decline effect reported by Clements et al. is a statistical artifact caused by the way they corrected for zero values in percentage data, which was more common in the earliest experiments compared with later studies. Furthermore, selective choices for excluding or including data, along with serious errors in the compilation of data and missing studies with strong effects, weakened the effect sizes reported for papers after 2010, further exacerbating the decline effect reported by Clements et al. When the data is reanalyzed using appropriate corrections for zero values in percentage and proportional data, and using a complete, corrected and properly screened data set, the extreme decline effect reported by Clements et al. no longer exists.