Ecological Methods

3 credits · Undergraduate

(3 hrs Lecture | 3 hrs Lab) This course deals with the statistical properties and analysis of ecological data. Students study the practical and conceptual bases of good statistical practice 'from the ground up', including study design, presentation of scientific results, and high quality graphics. Topics include the nature of data and variables, exploratory analysis, statistical distributions and probability, study design, replication, and pseudoreplication. Students use real ecological data sets to perform simple and multiple linear regression, ANOVA, and ANCOVA. In the laboratory, students learn how to use the R open source statistical language to produce high quality graphics and to perform elementary statistical programming. Requisite Courses: GEOG-2203 or BIOL-2403 or BIOL-3471, and 1 course from STAT-1301, STAT-1501, GEOG-2309, GEOG-2310 or BIOL-3492, or permission of the instructor [prerequisite(s)]; BIOL-4471L (lab) (must be taken concurrently).