Introduction to WinBUGS for Ecologists: Bayesian approach to regression, ANOVA, mixed models and related analyses - Softcover

Kéry, Marc

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0123786053 ISBN 13: 9780123786050

Publisher: Academic Press, 2010

Synopsis

Introduction to WinBUGS for Ecologists introduces applied Bayesian modeling to ecologists using the highly acclaimed, free WinBUGS software. It offers an understanding of statistical models as abstract representations of the various processes that give rise to a data set. Such an understanding is basic to the development of inference models tailored to specific sampling and ecological scenarios. The book begins by presenting the advantages of a Bayesian approach to statistics and introducing the WinBUGS software. It reviews the four most common statistical distributions: the normal, the uniform, the binomial, and the Poisson. It describes the two different kinds of analysis of variance (ANOVA): one-way and two- or multiway. It looks at the general linear model, or ANCOVA, in R and WinBUGS. It introduces generalized linear model (GLM), i.e., the extension of the normal linear model to allow error distributions other than the normal. The GLM is then extended contain additional sources of random variation to become a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) for a Poisson example and for a binomial example. The final two chapters showcase two fairly novel and nonstandard versions of a GLMM. The first is the site-occupancy model for species distributions; the second is the binomial (or N-) mixture model for estimation and modeling of abundance.

• Introduction to the essential theories of key models used by ecologists
• Complete juxtaposition of classical analyses in R and Bayesian analysis of the same models in WinBUGS
• Provides every detail of R and WinBUGS code required to conduct all analyses
• Companion Web Appendix that contains all code contained in the book and additional material (including more code and solutions to exercises)

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Marc works as a senior scientist at the Swiss Ornithological Institute, Seerose 1, 6204 Sempach, Switzerland. This is a non-profit NGO with about 160 employees dedicated primarily to bird research, monitoring, and conservation. Marc was trained as a plant population ecologist at the Swiss Universities of Basel and Zuerich. After a 2-year postdoc at the (then) USGS Patuxent Wildlife Center in Laurel, MD. During the last 20 years he has worked at the interface between population ecology, biodiversity monitoring, wildlife management, and statistics. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and five textbooks on applied statistical modeling. He has also been very active in teaching fellow biologists and wildlife managers the concepts and tools of modern statistical analysis in their fields in workshops all over the world, something which goes together with his books, which target the same audiences.

From the Back Cover

Introduction to WINbugs for Ecologists is an introduction to Bayesian statistical modeling, written for ecologists by an ecologist, using the widely available WinBUGS package. Examples are placed within a comprehensive and largely non-mathematical overview of linear, generalized linear (GLM), mixed and generalized linear mixed models (GLMM). This book will be of interest to any quantitative scientist who uses regression-type models, especially ecologists, agronomists, geologists, epidemiologists, sociologists, and psychologists. This book:

• Teaches by example rather than by equations.
• Contains examples based on simulated data along with fully commented R code for the generation of these data sets.
• Is full integrated with program R―all analyses are conducted by calling program WinBUGS from within program R.

Dr. Kéry is a population ecologist with the Swiss Ornithological Institute. He is the author of over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles on a wide range of topics, including the analysis of large-scale monitoring programs, demographic population analyses, experimental design for animal and plant surveys, and the population ecology of rare species.

Edition details

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0123786053
• ISBN 13: 9780123786050
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320