Integrated Population Models: Theory and Ecological Applications With R and Jags

Integrated Population Models: Theory and Ecological Applications with R and JAGS is the first book on integrated population models, which constitute a powerful framework for combining multiple data sets from the population and the individual levels to estimate demographic parameters, and population size and trends. These models identify drivers of population dynamics and forecast the composition and trajectory of a population.

Written by two population ecologists with expertise on integrated population modeling, this book provides a comprehensive synthesis of the relevant theory of integrated population models with an extensive overview of practical applications, using Bayesian methods by means of case studies. The book contains fully-documented, complete code for fitting all models in the free software, R and JAGS. It also includes all required code for pre- and post-model-fitting analysis.

Integrated Population Models is an invaluable reference for researchers and practitioners involved in population analysis, and for graduate-level students in ecology, conservation biology, wildlife management, and related fields. The text is ideal for self-study and advanced graduate-level courses.

• Offers practical and accessible ecological applications of IPMs (integrated population models)
• Provides full documentation of analyzed code in the Bayesian framework
• Written and structured for an easy approach to the subject, especially for non-statisticians

Dr. Michael Schaub is a senior scientist and head of the population biology research group at the Swiss Ornithological Institute, and a courtesy professor at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Michael was trained as an animal population ecologist at the universities of Basel and Zürich. After a 1-year postdoc at the Centre National de la Rechereche Scientifique (CNRS) in Montpellier, France, he jointed the Swiss Ornithological Institute. His research interests include population dynamics, capture-recapture models, integrated population models, and migratory birds. He has coauthored approximately 170 peer-reviewed journal publications and the two books on applied Bayesian modeling for ecologists and has taught about 30 week-long workshops all over the world.

Dr. Marc Kéry is a senior scientist at the Swiss Ornithological Institute, a non-profit NGO with about 200 employees dedicated primarily to bird research, monitoring, and conservation. Marc was trained as a plant population ecologist at the universities of Basel and Zürich, Switzerland. After a 2-year postdoc at the (then) USGS Patuxent Wildlife Center in Laurel, USA, he moved into animal population ecology and during the last 25 years has worked at the interface between population ecology, biodiversity monitoring, wildlife management, and applied statistics. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and six textbooks on applied statistical modeling. He has taught more than 60 one-week workshops all over the world to biologists and wildlife managers about the concepts and practice of modern statistical analysis in their fields, something which goes together with his books, which target the same audiences.