Methods in Statistical Ecology – serie

This book gives a unifying framework for estimating the abundance of open populations: populations subject to births, deaths and movement, given imperfect measurements or samples of the populations. The focus is primarily on populations of vertebrates for which dynamics are typically modelled within the framework of an annual cycle, and for which stochastic variability in the demographic processes is usually modest. Discrete-time models are developed in which animals can be assigned to discrete states such as age class, gender, maturity,  population (within a metapopulation), or species (for multi-species models).The book goes well beyond estimation of abundance, allowing inference on underlying population processes such as birth or recruitment, survival and movement. This requires the formulation and fitting of population dynamics models. The resulting fitted models yield both estimates of abundance and estimates of parameters characterizing the underlying processes.

This book gives a unifying framework for estimating the abundance of open populations: populations subject to births, deaths and movement, given imperfect measurements or samples of the populations. The focus is primarily on populations of vertebrates for which dynamics are typically modelled within the framework of an annual cycle, and for which stochastic variability in the demographic processes is usually modest. Discrete-time models are developed in which animals can be assigned to discrete states such as age class, gender, maturity,  population (within a metapopulation), or species (for multi-species models).The book goes well beyond estimation of abundance, allowing inference on underlying population processes such as birth or recruitment, survival and movement. This requires the formulation and fitting of population dynamics models. The resulting fitted models yield both estimates of abundance and estimates of parameters characterizing the underlying processes.

This book introduces ecologists to the wonderful world of modern tools for data analysis, especially multivariate analysis. For biologists with relatively little prior knowledge of statistics, it introduces a modern, advanced approach to data analysis in an intuitive and accessible way.

This book introduces ecologists to the wonderful world of modern tools for data analysis, especially multivariate analysis.For biologists with relatively little prior knowledge of statistics, it introduces a modern, advanced approach to data analysis in an intuitive and accessible way. The book begins by reviewing some core principles in statistics, and relates common methods to the linear model, a general framework for modeling data where the response is continuous. This is then extended to discrete data using generalized linear models, to designs with multiple sampling levels via mixed models, and to situations where there are multiple response variables via model-based approaches to multivariate analysis. Along the way there is an introduction to: important principles in model selection; adaptations of the model to handle non-linearity and cyclical variables; dependence due to structured correlation in time, space or phylogeny; and design-based techniques for inference that can relax some of the modelling assumptions. It concludes with a range of advanced topics in model-based multivariate analysis relevant to the modern ecologist, including fourth corner, latent variable and copula models.Examples span a variety of applications including environmental monitoring, species distribution modeling, global-scale surveys of plant traits, and small field experiments on biological controls. Math Boxes throughout the book explain some of the core ideas mathematically for readers who want to delve deeper, and R code is used throughout. Accompanying code, data, and solutions to exercises can be found in the ecostats R package on CRAN.

This book describes a range of models for ecological data sets using both classical and Bayesian methods of inference, and illustrates their use through a varied set of real examples. These examples exhibit a range of sampling schemes, applied to various taxa and in varying environmental conditions. The book also describes pitfalls to be avoided in the design and analysis of ecological surveys. Models may be spatial and/or temporal, and often include covariates such as measures of habitat, temperature and rainfall. Covariate selection for given problems is discussed. Other topics include the construction of individual species spatial maps, how spatial distributions change over time, models for unmarked and marked/identifiable individuals, integrated analysis, and how methods can be used to estimate biodiversity. In addition, the book reviews emerging new technologies; for instance, remote sensing and the use of drones, which result in opportunities for new methods of analysis.This book is a source of reference for postgraduates and research scientists in statistics and ecology. It may be used for graduate-level teaching, as well as a research reference. It critically and comprehensively presents the most up-to-date statistical modeling work in the area, recommending statistical methods. There is an extensive bibliography and multiple links to computer programs written in R, BUGS and other languages, as well as relevant computer packages; computing material may be accessed via download from the book website.

In this book, the authors cover the basic methods and advances within distance sampling that are most valuable to practitioners and in ecology more broadly.