Introduction to WinBUGS for Ecologists: Bayesian Approach to Regression, ANOVA, Mixed Models and Related Analyses

by Marc Kéry

Overview

Introduction to WinBUGS for Ecologists introduces applied Bayesian modeling to ecologists using the highly acclaimed, free WinBUGS software. It offers an understanding of statistical models as abstract representations of the various processes that give rise to a data set. Such an understanding is basic to the development of inference models tailored to specific sampling and ecological scenarios. The book begins by presenting the advantages of a Bayesian approach to statistics and introducing the WinBUGS software. It reviews the four most common statistical distributions: the normal, the uniform, the binomial, and the Poisson. It describes the two different kinds of analysis of variance (ANOVA): one-way and two- or multiway. It looks at the general linear model, or ANCOVA, in R and WinBUGS. It introduces generalized linear model (GLM), i.e., the extension of the normal linear model to allow error distributions other than the normal. The GLM is then extended contain additional sources of random variation to become a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) for a Poisson example and for a binomial example. The final two chapters showcase two fairly novel and nonstandard versions of a GLMM. The first is the site-occupancy model for species distributions; the second is the binomial (or N-) mixture model for estimation and modeling of abundance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780123786050
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	06/17/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Principles of Bayesian Statistics
3. WinBUGS
4. A First Session in WinBUGS
5. Running WinBUGS from R via R2WinBUGS
6. Key Components of Generalized Linear Models
7. T-Test, Normal Linear Regression
8. Normal One-Way ANOVA
9. Interaction, General Linear Model
10. Linear Mixed-Effects Model
11. Introduction to the Generalized Linear Model (GLM)
12. Overdispersion and Offsets in the GLM
13. Poisson ANCOVA
14. Poisson Mixed-Effects Model
15. Binomial T-Test
16. Binomial ANCOVA
17. Binomial Mixed-Effects Model
18. Non-Standard GLMMs 1
19. Non-Standard GLMMs 2
20. Conclusion and Outlook
Acknowledgements
References

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

An introduction to applied Bayesian analysis using the market’s standard tool, WinBUGS software, to conduct the types of modeling ecologists practice every day

Editorial Reviews

"I don’t believe this book was written with the goal of being treated as the primary text of an intro Bayesian statistics course. That said, it could prove to be a useful supplemental text for an introductory Bayesian course or even a linear models course. Although the book was geared towards ecologists, I believe it would be an excellent library addition for any applied modeler interested in applying Bayesian methodologies in their work." —The American Statistician

From the Publisher