The main objectives are that after this course:
- You are able to outline and evaluate the main goals and challenges of conservation biology.
- You can appropriately analyze count data, and handle missing information, to derive population trends in conservation status assessments.
- You can appropriately analyze community data with several forms of multivariate statistics and design experiments to unravel steering factors
- You are able to describe techniques that use environmental variables to study and extrapolate abundance maps.
- You can perform demographic analyses, including basic capture-mark-recapture analyses to estimate survival and dispersal rates.
- You can conceptually link behavioral ecology to population dynamics, and design experiments to test these links.
- You understand how integral projection models and population viability analyses can be used to inform conservation policy, and apply basic of these techniques.
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Theoretical and statistical models are often used in ecological research. Simple models are very useful tools for gaining insight in the mechanisms and consequences of theories in ecology. In this course you will focus on the statistical analysis of ecological data (which are often complex) and on dynamic models in ecology (e.g. invasion, metapopulation, coexistence and species interaction models). Topics covered include e.g. model choice, (multivariate) regression analyses, principle component analyses, capture-mark-recapture analyses and model selection. All modelling during the course will be done using freely-available software (e.g. R, MARK). Basic knowledge of R and statistical analyses is therefore recommended and can be acquired through self-study of the supplied materials. This course will provide you with quantitative skills which can for example be used for MSc internships on quantitative conservation biology, in cooperation with the Natuurplaza partners at the Nijmegen campus.
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