Ozone variance-to-mean ratios gave no clear repeated change in 66 invertebrate abundance records from a 2024 release

We tested whether ozone changed count spread after allowance for mean abundance. We used 66 selected records from 16 papers in a public 2024 data release. The equal-paper variance-to-mean ratio was 1.37, with a conditional 95% interval of 0.51–3.72. Only seven paper averages were above one. All five region and publication-period intervals included one after five-test correction. Keeping at least six units per treatment gave 0.96, with interval 0.63–1.47. One small Argentine study strongly affected the estimate. Its two extracted mean and SD pairs matched the original table. These data do not establish a common change in count spread. Shared facilities, mixed observation units, small samples and selective reporting limit inference. Variance among treatment units is not population stability through time. No climate interaction was tested. The package gives code, aggregate results, a figure, source hashes and independent arithmetic checks.

ozone · invertebrates · abundance · variance-to-mean ratio · observation bias · regional replication · null result