Interesting New Publications Involving SEM:

Here is a new paper describing what may be the next-generation methodology.

Grace, J.B., Schoolmaster, D.R. Jr., Guntenspergen, G.R., Little, A.M., Mitchell, B.R., Miller, K.M., and Schweiger, E.W. 2012. Guidelines for a graph-theoretic implementation of structural equation modeling. Ecosphere 3(8): article 73 (44 pages). access here.

Matthew Forister and collaborators have a new paper giving an elegant presentation involving butterflies.

Forister ML, Fordyce JA, McCall AC, Shapiro AM. 2011. A complete record from colonization to extinction reveals density dependence and the importance of winter conditions for a population of the silvery blue, Glaucopsyche lygdamus. Journal of Insect Science 11:130 (available online: insectscience.org/11.130)

Judea Pearl's new paper on SEM is attracting a lot of interest among methods developers.

(R-370): J. Pearl, "The Causal Foundations of Structural Equation Modeling" UCLA Cognitive Systems Laboratory, Technical Report (R-370), January 2012. Chapter for R. H. Hoyle (Ed.), Handbook of Structural Equation Modeling. New York: Guilford Press. available at his website: http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/jp_home.html (paper R-370)

I am associated with a very interesting analysis of experimental data, which shows what SEM can add that classical ANOVA or ANCOVA cannot. I do wish analyses of this sort, along with the background discussions needed, would make it into statistics books.

Whalen, M.A., Duffy, J.E., and Grace, J.B. 2013. Temporal shifts in top-down versus bottom-up control of epiphytic algae in a seagrass ecosystem. Ecology 94:510-520.

http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/12-0156.1