Applied Statistical Modelling for Ecologists: A Practical Guide to Bayesian and Likelihood Inference Using R, JAGS/Nimble, Stan and TMB provides an important guide and comparison of powerful new software packages that are now widely used in research publications, including JAGS, Stan, Nimble, and TMB. It provides a gentle introduction to the most exciting specialist software that is often used to conduct cutting-edge research, along with Bayesian statistics and frequentist statistics with its maximum likelihood estimation method. In addition, this book is simple and accessible, allowing researchers to carry out and understand statistical modeling. Through examples, the book covers the underlying statistical models widely used by scientists across many disciplines. Thus, this book will be useful for anyone who needs to quickly become proficient in statistical modeling, and in the model-fitting engines covered.
- Provides a comprehensive, applied introduction to some of the most exciting, cutting-edge model fitting software packages: JAGS, Nimble, Stan, and TMB
- Covers all the basics of the modern applied statistical modeling that have become a key part of any natural science, including linear, generalized linear, mixed and also hierarchical models
- Provides applied introduction to the two dominant methods of parametric statistical modeling: maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference
- Adopts what could be called a "Rosetta stone approach," wherein understanding of one software, and of its associated language, will be greatly enhanced by seeing the analogous code in one of the other engines
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.
Dr. Ken Kellner is an Assistant Research Professor at Michigan State University, MI, United States. Prior to his current position, he completed a Ph.D. in forest ecology at Purdue University, IN, United States, and a postdoc at West Virginia University, WV, United States. Ken's research has covered a wide range of topics including forest management, plant demography, and avian and mammal conservation. He has published this research in more than 40 peer reviewed publications. In addition, Ken is particularly focused on the development of open-source software tools for ecological modeling. He has developed or contributed to several software packages that are widely used by ecologists and featured in several books, including the successful R packages jagsUI, unmarked, and ubms.
