HEADS I WIN, TAILS YOU LOSE - TESTING DIRECTIONAL ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESES IN ECOLOGICAL AND EVOLUTIONARY RESEARCH

Whenever experiments make a priori predictions about the direction of change in some parameter, one-tailed test statistics offer a potentially large gain in power over the corresponding two-tailed test. This gain is rarely used in ecology and evolution because of (1) the belief that one-tailed procedures are unavailable for most statistical tests and (2) an inherent dilemma in one-tailed tests: how do we handle large parameter changes in the unanticipated direction? The first problem is a misconception, whereas the second is easily resolved by recognizing that one and two-tailed tests are simply extremes in a continuum of testing options.