Tree Pólya Splitting distributions for multivariate count data

Abstract

In this article, we develop a new class of multivariate distributions adapted for count data, called Tree Pólya Splitting. This class results from the combination of a univariate distribution and singular multivariate distributions along a fixed partition tree. Known distributions, including the Dirichlet-multinomial, the generalized Dirichlet-multinomial and the Dirichlet-tree multinomial, are particular cases within this class. As we will demonstrate, these distributions offer some flexibility, allowing for the modeling of complex dependence structures (positive, negative, or null) at the observation level. Specifically, we present theoretical properties of Tree Pólya Splitting distributions by focusing primarily on marginal distributions, factorial moments, and dependence structures (covariance and correlations). A dataset of abundance of Trichoptera is used, on one hand, as a benchmark to illustrate the theoretical properties developed in this article, and on the other hand, to demonstrate the interest of these types of models, notably by comparing them to other approaches for fitting multivariate data, such as the Poisson-lognormal model in ecology or singular multivariate distributions used in microbial analysis.