Bayesian Analysis for Population Ecology

Ruth King is a reader in statistics at the University of St. Andrews and a former EPSRC post-doctoral Research Fellow. Byron J.T. Morgan is a professor of applied statistics at the University of Kent and co-director of the EPSRC National Centre for Statistical Ecology. Olivier Gimenez is a research scientist in biostatistics at CNRS and a former Marie Curie research fellow. Stephen P. Brooks is director of research at ATASS Ltd and a former professor of statistics at the University of Cambridge and EPSRC Advanced Fellow.

• Introduction to Statistical Analysis of Ecological Data. Bayesian Techniques and Tools. Ecological Applications. Appendices. References. Index.

"Although the book draws largely from questions and issues relevant to wildlife management, it serves as a useful guide for individuals outside the field. Overall, Bayesian Analysis for Population Ecology makes a great addition to a practicing ecologist’s statistical bookshelf. As the author’s state, the volume can also serve as a textbook and form a strong base for teaching an upper-division or graduate-level course in Bayesian statistics."—Bret D. Elderd, The Quarterly Review of Biology, March 2013"The primary strengths of this book are the authors’ extensive practical experience in applying Bayesian methods and the advanced material on model selection and multimodel inference, particularly via reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo. This would be a valuable reference for those already familiar with core Bayesian methods, and who are looking to learn more about ecological statistics or to implement these methods for complex ecological data. … Several fully worked examples taken mostly from the authors’ own research are presented in each chapter, and these go a long way in helping to unravel some of the art of Bayesian inference. The material is well presented and will be informative both to statisticians seeking an introduction to ecological modeling and to ecologists wishing to learn about Bayesian inference."—Simon Bonner, Biometrics, 2011"The book is divided into three parts. … Part 1 contains a wealth of material on aspects of such data, models analysis as well as the [historical] evolution of the subject. Part 2 is a good, self-contained introduction to Bayesian analysis … Part 3 is a collection of interesting special topics in ecological applications. … The authors write very well and illustrate with good examples. Both the technical and nontechnical discussions are good."—International Statistical Review (2011), 79, 1"… the book under review will be of value for quantitative ecologists. The authors offer good practical advice on the implementation of MCMC and model selection, using data types familiar to wildlife ecologists. The text includes exercises at the end of each chapter in Sections 1 and 2; these and the primers on programs R and WinBUGS are attractive features. The authors have had a leading role promoting Reversible Jump MCMC as a tool for multimodel inference in wildlife and ecological applications, and their book continues this work."—The American Statistician, February 2011, Vol. 65, No. 1"… a solid introduction to Bayesian modeling. … The authors have produced a text that is not only of good use to those who are analyzing population ecological data, but to anyone desiring a good overview of Bayesian modeling in general. The examples are interesting and do not hinder those not in the discipline of population ecology from understanding the explanation of the statistical principles being discussed. I recommend the book for a graduate-level course on Bayesian modeling, as well as any course related to the Bayesian modeling of population ecological data. The reader is not expected to have a prior knowledge of Bayesian modeling, nor is there an assumption that readers are familiar with R or WinBUGS. …"—Journal of Statistical Software, August 2010, Volume 36