Some empirical results on nearest neighbour pseudo-populations for resampling from spatial populations

In finite populations, pseudo-population bootstrap is the sole method preserving the spirit of the original bootstrap performed from iid observations. In spatial and environmental sampling, the issue of creating pseudo-populations able to mimic the characteristics of real populations is challeng- ing because spatial trends, relationships, and similarities among neighboring locations are invariably present. In this paper we propose the use of the nearest-neighbor interpolation of spatial populations for constructing pseudo-populations that converge to real populations under mild conditions. The ef- fectiveness of these proposals with respect to traditional pseudo-populations is empirically checked by a simulation study.