STABLE ISOTOPE MIXING MODELS - STATS COURSE

[Melanie Colón]

Stable Isotope Mixing Models (SIMMs) using SIAR, SIBER AND MixSIAR

This course is being delivered by Dr Andrew Parnell and Dr Andrew Jackson
who author the package SIAR - specifically designed to analyse stable isot
isotope data

This course will be run from January 12th – 15th 2016 at SCENE (Scottish Ce
Centre for Ecology and the Natural Environment), in Loch Lomond National Pa
Park, Glasgow, United Kingdom

This course will cover the concepts, technical background and use of stable
isotope mixing models (SIMMs) with a particular focus on running them in R.
Recently SIMMs have become a very popular tool for quantifying food webs
and thus the diet of predators and prey in an ecosystem. Starting with only
basic understanding of statistical models, we will cover the dos and don’ts
of using SIMMs with a particular focus on the widely used package SIAR and
the new, more advanced MixSIAR. Participants will be taught some of the advanced features
advanced features of these packages, which will enable them to produce a richer class of o
richer class of output, and are encouraged to bring their own data sets and problems to study
problems to study during the round-table discussions.

Curriculum:

Day 1: Basic concepts
Class 1: Introduction; why use a SIMM?
Class 2: An introduction to Bayesian Statistics.
Class 3: Differences between regression models and SIMMs.
Practical: revision on using R to load data, create plots and fit statistic
statistical models
Round table discussion: understanding the output from a Bayesian model

Day 2: Understanding and using SIAR
Class 1: Dos and Don’ts of using SIAR
Class 2: The statistical model behind SIAR
Practical: Using SIAR for real-world data sets; reporting output; creating ric
richer summaries and plots of the results
Round table discussion: Issues when using simple SIMMs

Day 3: SIBER and MixSIAR
Class 1: Creating and understanding Stable Isotope Bayesian Ellipses (
(SIBER)
Class 2: What are the differences between SIAR and MixSIAR?
Practical: Using MixSIAR on real world data sets; benefits over SIAR
Round table discussion: When to use which type of SIMM

Day 4: Advanced SIMMs
Class 1: Using MixSIAR for complex data sets: time series and mixed effects models
Class
models
Class 2: Source grouping: when and how?
Class 3: Building your own SIMM with JAGS
Practical: Running advanced SIMMs with JAGS
Round table discussion: Bring your own data set

Cost is £500 for the 4 days including lunches and refreshments or £645 for an all-in
an all-inclusive option which includes the addition of accommodation, breakfast
breakfast, lunch, dinner and refreshments.

For further details or questions or to register please email oliverh
oliverhooker@prstatistics.co.uk or visit www.prstatistics.co.uk

Please feel free to distribute this material among colleagues if you think it is
it is suitable

Additional upcoming courses; GENETIC DATA ANALYSIS USING SIAR; ; APPLIED BAY
BAYESIAN MODELLING FOR ECOLOGISTS AND EPIDEMIOLOGISTS; SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF ECO
ECOLOGICAL DATA USING R; ADVANCING IN R. PYTHON FOR BIOLOGISTS; INT
INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICS AND R FOR BIOLOGISTS; DNA TAXONOMY; TIME SERIES ANA
ANALYSIS FOR ECOLOGISTS AND CLIMATOLOGISTS; BIOINFORMATICS FOR GENETICISTS AND
AND BIOLOGISTS; MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS OF SPATIAL DATA;

Oliver Hooker
PR~Statistics