WCS Malaysia program has regularly run statistics workshops for their own staff, and in 2007 they also ran courses at the PERHILITAN training centre at Krau, Pahang. The "Boot Camp" aims to make this training available to people in other organisations, and we have ran six sessions in 2009, two in Kuala Lumpur, one in Johor and three in Kuching.

What does it cover?

We will begin with the basics:

• What is statistics all about? - the nature of statistical inference.
• The concept of "sampling error", and how to quantify it as standard error or confidence interval.
• Ronald Fisher's approach to hypothesis testing and confidence interval estimation. Fisher's ideas, together with those of Jerzy Neyman and Egon Pearson, dominated biological statistics during the twentieth century.
• Randomisation tests and confidence intervals as an alternative to traditional nonparametric tests.
• The use of R statistical software for basic analysis, including randomisation and simulation procedures.

Then we'll move on to Information Theoretic (IT) methods developed in the last few decades, which now dominate ecology: the software packages PRESENCE, DISTANCE and MARK all make use of IT methods.

• The concept of "likelihood", and maximum likelihood estimation of parameters.
• Ecological models: turning hypotheses into mathematical equations which predict the observations we should get. We'll use data on wolves killing moose in Isle Royale NP and analyze it in MS Excel™.
• Using AIC (Akaike's Information Criterion) to compare models and to choose the most useful.

We will also include a "taster" of Bayesian methods, which are becoming important tools in the ecological toolkit, thanks to the power of modern computers and clever software packages.

• The meaning of "probability" in the Bayesian world.
• Combining prior information with the results of our study: pros and cons.
• Using "Bayesian posteriors" as the basis for decision making: we'll look at decisions on hunting Beluga whales as an example.

Once all this background has been covered, we will offer optional one-day sessions on:

1. Estimating occupancy from "presence/absence" data, including the use of the PRESENCE software package.
2. Distance sampling and line transect methods with the DISTANCE package; if participants are interested in dung surveys, we can include methods for dealing with dung decay.
3. Mark-recapture methods and the MARK package.
4. Species richness, biodiversity indices, and the use of the EsimateS package.

The final day we'll pull this together, consider which methods from among those available are most appropriate for specific research objectives, and look at some examples from the wildlife literature.

An outline schedule is available here.

Who are the trainers?

The lead trainer will be Mike Meredith, Science Advisor to WCS Malaysia Program and author of the chapters on occupancy, line transects, mark-recapture, and biodiversity in the 2nd edition of Problem-solving in conservation biology and wildlife management by James Gibbs, Malcolm Hunter and Eleanor Sterling (Blackwell, 2008).

He will be assisted by other WCS Malaysia staff.

Who should attend?

The course is aimed at science graduates who are involved in field work in conservation or wildlife management, or who use the results of such field work. No previous knowledge of statistics is needed, ie. we'll assume you've forgotten the stats you learnt at university!

We will assume familiarity with the use of computers - and in particular Microsoft Excel™ - and we'll ask you to bring a notebook computer to the course.

When and where?

See the BCSS home page for up to date information.

What to bring?

Please bring a laptop / notebook computer running MS Windows or Vista, with the following software installed:

• Microsoft Excel including the Solver; open Excel and look for "Solver..." on the Tools menu; if it isn't there, select "Add-Ins..." and check the box next to "Solver Add-in"; you may need the original Microsoft Office installation discs to complete the process. Note that 'Goal Seek' in Excel, StarOffice and OpenOffice is not equivalent to 'Solver'.
   
• PRESENCE, DISTANCE, MARK and EstimateS software packages.
• R statistical software.
• WinBUGS 1.4.3

You will find links and information on these packages here. Apart from Excel, all this software is free of charge.

More information

For more information on the material to be covered check the WCS Malaysia website or look at the relevant chapters in Problem-solving in conservation biology and wildlife management.

For specific questions or suggestions on content, contact mike at m-meredith dot net.