Introduction:
The purpose of this course is to provide you with the primary numerical
tools that are needed to conduct ecological surveys and to analyse
ecological data. There is particular focus on the techniques that
are used to detect change through time or to detect the impact of
management perturbations.
It is envisaged that at the end of this course you should be
able to apply fairly straight forward techniques to a practical
situation. You should be able to design a survey or experiment to
answer your ecological experiments, carry out the analysis, and
assess critically the results.
Course Aims:
The basic aim is to provide you with the basic statistical, methodological
and analysis tools for:
1. Collection of baseline data on distribution and abundance
of organisms, and the analysis ands presentation of such data
2. Design of monitoring schemes to detect environmental
change
3. Design and analysis of experiments designed to
detect environmental impacts
4. Building simple models to describe ecological populations
for forecasting changes in population size of long lived organisms
Assessment:
On-line quizzes 25%
Project report 50%
Literature report 25%
Modules:
Module 1 Basic statistical methods for ecology
The nature of ecological data and basic statistical concepts;
Elementary statistical tools; Experimental design and ANOVA for
ecology; Survey design; Detection of change through time; Process
and measurement error and repeated measures design
Module 2 Estimating population size
Quadrats, line and belt transects and Mark Recapture methods
Module 3 Detecting environmental impacts
BACI designs and beyond
Module 4 Multivariate methods for ecological data
Ordination methods
Module 5 Building dimple ecological models
Leslie and Lefkowitz methods
Module 6 Decision theory for ecological problems
Basics of decision theory