I have a quick question that should hopefully require a quick answer (my apologies if this is a rather simple question). I have two estimates of relative abundance from two sub-populations and want to sum them to obtain one overall number. Being that they're just estimates, I also have their corresponding measures of uncertainty (i.e. coefficients of variation, CVs). I know that if the output is a linear combination of the inputs with coefficients equal to 1, I can come up with an estimate of the variance for the output by adding together the variances of the inputs. For example: \begin{align} y &= x_{1} + x_{2} \\ var(y) &= var(x_{1}) + var(x_{2}) \end{align} However, I'm obtaining the estimates from published reports and they express uncertainty in CVs and not variances. Can I add the CVs together like variances?
Thanks in advance for your help!!