Courses

Species presence/absence is a fundamental concept used in many areas of ecology (e.g., species distributions, habitat modelling, monitoring, and metapopulation studies), however imperfect detection can lead to false absences. Unaccounted for, false absences can lead to misleading inferences about patterns and dynamics of species occurrence, and the factors that influence them.

In this 4.5 day introductory course we cover methods that have been developed to account for imperfect detection with species detection/nondetection data, and also discus important study design considerations. Classroom exercises are completed using the purpose-built software Program PRESENCE, and also R.

This course is targeted at those that have no, or little, experience with occupancy modelling, but more experienced users may also benefit from attending. Familiarity with regression, logistic regression or generalised linear modelling would be an advantage.

There are a number of useful extensions of the basic models that are covered in the beginner/intermediate course, such as multi-scale occupancy models, multi-state models and species co-occurrence model. In this 3-day advanced course, we present the theory of these more complex approaches, along with classroom exercises. All exercises are completed in R.

Participants are expected to well experienced in occupancy modelling, and may have completed the above course (or a similar course) but this is not a requirement. They should also be comfortable in using R, e.g., data input/output, produce plots, understand the formula-based notation frequently used in R for defining models.

Mark-capture studies are widely used to study the demographics of animal and plant populations, e.g., for estimating population size and survival rates. There is a great deal of variety for exactly what type of data may be collected, depending on the questions of interest and resources available. Program MARK is software that has been developed for analysing data from many of these different types of mark-recapture studies.

In this 4-day course we introduce participants to the software, teaching them the basics of how to analyse data with Program MARK. While some of the underlying theory is covered, the focus is on how to use the software. Participants are expected to have a good understanding of the fundamentals of mark-recapture methods (e.g., closed population models, Cormack-Jolly-Seber model, Pollock’s robust design), and familiarity with regression models, logistic regression or generalised linear models.

R is a programming environment that is becoming increasingly popular over time. While often thought of as software for conducting statistical analyses, it is much more than that. This 4-day course is intended to introduce participants to many of the fundamentals of using R for entering and manipulating data, data summaries, conducting basic analyses, creating plots and more.