Zuur A.F., Ieno E.N., Smith G.M. Analysing Ecological Data

Springer – 2007, 685 pages
ISBN: 0387459677
A comprehensive and practical guide to analysing ecological data based on courses given to researchers, environmental consultants and post graduate students.
Provides comprehensive introductory chapters together with 17 detailed case study chapters written jointly with former course attendants.
Each case study explores the statistical options most appropriate to the ecological questions being asked and will help the reader choose the best approach to analysing their own data.
A non-mathematical, but modern approach (GLM, GAM, mixed models, tree models, neural networks) is used throughout the book, making it ideally suited to practicing ecologists and environmental scientists as well as professional statisticians.
All data sets from the case studies are available for downloading from www.highstat.com
This book provides a practical introduction to analysing ecological data using real data sets collected as part of postgraduate ecological studies or research projects.
The first part of the book gives a largely non-mathematical introduction to data exploration, univariate methods (including GAM and mixed modelling techniques), multivariate analysis, time series analysis (e.g. common trends) and spatial statistics. The second part provides 17 case studies, mainly written together with biologists who attended courses given by the first authors. The case studies include topics ranging from terrestrial ecology to marine biology. The case studies can be used as a template for your own data analysis; just try to find a case study that matches your own ecological questions and data structure, and use this as starting point for you own analysis. Data from all case studies are available from www.highstat.com. Guidance on software is provided in Chapter 2.
Alain Zuur is senior statistician and director of Highland Statistics Ltd., a statistical consultancy company based in the UK. He has contributed to a wide range of projects related to marine biology, oceanography, ecology, fisheries, etc. and has extensive experience teaching statistics to ecologists and environmental scientists in the form of academic and non-academic courses. He is honorary research fellow in the School of Biological Sciences, Oceanlab, at the University of Aberdeen, UK.
Elena Ieno is senior marine biologist at Highland Statistics Ltd. In 2004 she left academia to work full time in statistical consultancy. She now teaches statistics to ecologists and has shown she can bridge the gap between the two disciplines and dispel the dread of statistics shown by most biologists. She is also involved in various international statistical consultancy projects, and is honorary research fellow in the School of Biological Sciences, Oceanlab, at the University of Aberdeen, UK.
Graham M. Smith is a Senior Lecturer at Bath Spa University in the UK where he teaches statistics to biology undergraduates. He has a background in ecological consultancy, and continues to provide consultancy on the design and analysis of ecological monitoring programmes and the development of quantitative methods in Ecological Impact Assessment.Data management and software
Advice for teachers
Exploration
Linear regression
Generalised linear modelling
Additive and generalised additive modelling
Introduction to mixed modelling
Univariate tree models
Measures of association
Ordination — First encounter
Principal component analysis and redundancy analysis
Correspondence analysis and canonical correspondence analysis
Introduction to discriminant analysis
Principal coordinate analysis and non-metric multidimensional scaling
Time series analysis — Introduction
Common trends and sudden changes
Analysis and modelling of lattice data
Spatially continuous data analysis and modelling
Univariate methods to analyse abundance of decapod larvae
Analysing presence and absence data for flatfish distribution in the Tagus
estuary, Portugal
Crop pollination by honeybees in Argentina using additive mixed Modelling
Investigating the effects of rice farming on aquatic birds with mixed modelling
Classification trees and radar detection of birds for North Sea wind farms
Fish stock identification through neural network analysis of parasite fauna
Monitoring for change: Using generalised least squares, non-metric
multidimensional scaling, and the Mantel test on western Montana
grasslands
Univariate and multivariate analysis applied on a Dutch sandy beach
Community
Multivariate analyses of South-American zoobenthic species — spoilt for
Choice
Principal component analysis applied to harbour porpoise fatty acid data
Multivariate analyses of morphometric turtle data — size and shape
Redundancy analysis and additive modelling applied on savanna tree data
Canonical correspondence analysis of lowland pasture vegetation in the
humid tropics of Mexico
Estimating common trends in Portuguese fisheries landings
Common trends in demersal communities on the Newfoundland-Labrador Shelf
Sea level change and salt marshes in the Wadden Sea: A time series
Analysis
Time series analysis of Hawaiian waterbirds
Spatial modelling of forest community features in the Volzhsko-Kamsky
Reserve