Multivariate statistics in community ecology
13-16 February 2007
lecturers
objectives
content
Multidimensional biological and environmental data and their transformation
Ordination methods (CA, PCA, PCoA, CCA, RDA, db-RDA)
Clustering methods (association matrices, hierarchical clustering, K-Means)
Permutation tests (tests of canonical ordination, Mantel tests)
Multivariate analysis of variance using Redundancy Analysis
Worked examples and exercises using R language
Attendance and home work - Active participaton is required and exercises have to be passed at the end of each chapter.
Prerequisite
If you have not attended any course previously (i.e., "applied statistical regression modelling for biologists using R") and thus if you are a beginner with this software (similar to S-Plus), we strongly encourage you to practice some rudiments of the R language before the course.
Note that the theoretical part of the course is very general and can be applied to any other suitable statistical software. However, a basic knowledge of the R language would be very useful, although not required, for the exercises.
R is open source and you can download binaries of the last version at:
http://stat.ethz.ch/CRAN/
Depending on the time you can put into this self-learning, you can find various tutorials and introductions to R from the CRAN web site:
http://www.r-project.org/
Under Documentation, go to Manuals, and see in particular the "contributed documentation":
http://cran.r-project.org/other-docs.html
You'll find here some useful short guides and tutorials, among which I recommend especially "R for Beginners" by Emmanuel Paradis, and the "R reference card" by Tom Short.
Dave Roberts has written a short introduction to R for vegetation ecologists:
http://ecology.msu.montana.edu/labdsv/R/R_ecology.html
general information
Dates: 13-16 February 2007
Schedule: 8.55 - 17.00
Location: Université de Neuchâtel, Unimail, bâtiment de chimie(G, "Institut de chimie"), room B1
Credit points: 2.5 credit points (Research tools)
Evaluation: Active participation is required and a practical evaluation (case study or exercises) has to be passed at the end of the course.
Information: Please contact Dr Daniel Borcard or Dr François Gillet
Travel expenses: NCCR Ph.D. participants are eligible for reimbursement of incurred travel expenses by train (half-fare card, and 2nd class). Please send the original tickets (no copies, except for the general abonnement) to Dr. Christiane Bobillier. No reimbursement for bus, taxi or car travel expenses will be paid.
registration
This course is opened to all Ph.D. student, however priority is given to doctoral programme "Plants and their Environment" participants and NCCR Plant Survival Ph.D. students. Postdocs and diploma students are welcome depending on availability.
This course is free, but the cost is approx. CHF 500.00 per person. Therefore a waiting list will be prepared to ensure that there are no empty seats.
Minimum number of participants: 8, maximum: 15. Course full.
Registration: closed
Deadline: 22 January 2007
