Introduction to Statistics for Ecology using R
- Start Date: February 18, 2025
- End Date: February 20, 2025
- Time: 9am - 4pm Pacific
- City: Castlegar BC
- Venue: Selkirk College
- Instructor: Brendan Wilson
- Be sure to review the contingency plan for this winter course
Course description
This course provides an introductory primer for statistical concepts and techniques. Learners will explore ecological data, assumptions about probability distributions, hypothesis testing, one and two sample tests, ANOVA, regression, and model building topics. Emphasis will be placed on integrating practical examples into course exercises.
The course will be taught using Excel and R software. Each day is broken into a morning and afternoon class block, each with a lecture component (1 hr) and a lab component (2 hrs).
Course objectives
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Understand the concept of data variability and how this is central to the use of statistics to help guide natural resource management decisions
- Manipulate datasets in different software programs enabling error checking and outlier identification
- Visualise data to understand patterns and structure
- Recognize different data types, scales, and distributions
- Identify the appropriate statistical test to use for a given situation
- Develop and use scripts to complete data exploration and analyses
**In the event extreme weather and major road events that make it impossible to travel to Castlegar in time for the course to commence on Feb 18th, this course will commence one day later. Registrants must incorporate this into their planning. See related notes on winter contingency plans below.**
Who should take this course?
Field biologists, managers, consultants, and students wanting an applied refresher of the basic classical statistical methods using modern tools. To get the most ouf this course participates, ideally, will have completed a diploma or 2 years of post secondary study in science that included a single statistics course.
Preparation and what to bring
- Students need to come with their own laptop computer, a secondary monitor is welcome.
- Pre-reading: Douglas A, Roos D, Mancini F, Couto A, Lusseau AD. 2023. An Introduction to R.
- Please read and use chapter 1 to help find and install software and then try the exercises in at least chapter 2 and 3 if you have not used R before
- Software requirements: Students will need to have the latest version of R and RStudio installed on their laptops. See web book noted above for help with this
Our instructor & course supporters
Brendan Wilson is an instructor and research scientist in Selkirk College’s School of Environment & Geomatics and Selkirk Innovates, where he has taught since 2001.
Originally from the Bow Valley in Alberta, Brendan has had a life-long interest in subalpine and timberline forest communities. He completed a B.Sc. Hons. in Applied Environmental Biology at the University of Technology in Sydney, where he examined the effect of selective harvesting on understory plant communities in an Australian subalpine forest. He completed his PhD at the University of Alberta, studying regeneration dynamics of alpine larch.
Over the past 20 years Brendan and his students have worked on whitebark pine conservation, species at risk assessment, white pine blister rust monitoring, species distribution modelling, prescribed fire and forest fuel treatment work, and using remotely sensed imagery to aid with these projects.
Brendan currently teaches Ecosystem Management, Systems Ecology, Applied Research Methods, and Spatial Statistics.
A big thank you to Selkirk College for the use of classroom space.
Winter contingency plans
We get many requests to hold our courses in the winter! 
However, one of the winter realities in our region is the increased possibility of road closures. As such, the following contingency plan is in place: In the event that extreme weather or major road events make travel to Castlegar impossible to arrive at this course ontime on Feb 18, this course will commence one day later. It is highly recommended that all registrants traveling to this course give themselves plenty of travel time to arrive safely.
Note that the even if the course is delayed and starts one day later as described above, CMI’s cancellation policy still applies – when registering for this course it is assumed you are available for the contingency dates.
Registration
Registration for this course includes catered refreshment breaks. There is an option to add bagged lunches for all three days of the course.
Member registration: $635
Non-member registration: $680
*Annual memberships fees can be paid via the registration form if needed, or via a seperate member registration form here
