Mark Gardener

My latest book is "Community Ecology: Analytical Methods Using R and Excel". This is now in print. The study of ecological community data involves many methods of analysis. In this book you will learn many of the mainstays of community analysis including: diversity, similarity and cluster analysis, ordination and multivariate analyses. This book is for undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers seeking a step-by-step methodology for analysing plant and animal communities using R and Excel.

The next project is about using Excel to manage data most effectively. The title is "Managing data using Excel: organising, summarizing and visualizing scientific data". This should be in print later in the summer 2014.

I started out as an optician but returned to science and completed my education with a degree from the Open University. I always wanted to be an ecologist and my degree enabled me to undertake research and I later gained a PhD in pollination ecology.

I've worked around the world and carried out field work in Australia and the United States as well as throughout the UK. After returning from research at the University of Hawai'i I began to do more teaching. I work as an Associate Lecturer with the Open University and also with the Field Studies Council.

More recently I have begun to write about ecology and science and in particular the process of collecting and analysing data. I have become familiar with the R program for statistical computing (open source and free) and run courses in learning R as well as writing about it (see my website www.dataanalytics.org.uk).

"Statistics for Ecologists" is about the process of data analysis and is more than just a recipe for carrying out various statistical analyses. I've included notes on the collecting of data, and the writing up of the results as well as details about a range of analytical methods.

My second book "Beginning R" is aimed at teaching users how to get to grips with this powerful and flexible program. This book will be useful for anyone who needs to analyse datu, not just ecologists.

"The Essential R Reference" is intended to be useful for new users and old hands alike. I like to think of it as a cross between a dictionary, thesaurus and glossary for R: the statistical programming language.