Fish and Wildlife Population Ecology  - Dr. Edward O. Garton

Preliminary Topical Outline

PREVIOUS YEARS OUTLINE

1. Course Orientation

a. Objectives

b. Exams and problem assignments

c. Grading

d. Text

2. Introduction

a. Uses and misuses of statistics

b. Statistician-biologist relationship

c. Estimation and hypothesis testing

d. Bias, precision, and accuracy

e. Populations and samples

f. Discrete and continuous variables

3. Brief review of basic statistical methods

useful in wildlife management

a. Estimates and their confidence intervals

i) Mean

ii) Median

iii) Proportion (binomial)

iv) Finite populations

v) Stratification

b. Sample design for estimation

i) Sampling schemes

ii) Sample size

c. Comparisons

i) One sample

ii) Two samples, unpaired

iii) Two samples, paired

iv) Three or more samples

d. Error and power

e. Sample design for making comparisons

i) Problems of replication

ii) Sample size

iii) Experimental design

f. Count data

i) Chi-square

ii) Kolmogorov-Smirnov

iii) Log-linear models

g. Prediction and association

i) Correlation

ii) Regression

4. Analysis of wildlife habitat selection and

dietary selection

a. Chi-squared and Bonferroni z-statistics

b. Multivariate approaches (multiple regression,

manova, discriminant analysis)

c. GSK and log-linear models

5. Analysis of seasonal and yearly harvest data

a. Graphical methods

b. Serial correlation

c. Auto-regression

d. Spectral analysis

6. Population density, survival and

natality estimation

a. Censuses and indices for closed populations

b. Mark-recapture methods for closed and open

populations

c. Catch per unit effort methods

d. Change in ratio methods

e. Age composition methods

f. Home range

7. Mid-term exam

8. Wildlife population models

a. Difference equation logistic and

exponential models

b. Basic matrix models

c. Maximum sustained yield

d. Big game models

e. Waterfowl models

f. Stability of populations

9. Final exam

REFERENCES

General:

 Braun, Clait (ed.).  2005.  Techniques For Wildlife Investigations and Management.  The Wildlife Society, Bethesda, MD.  974 p.

 Caswell, H.  2001.  Matrix Population Models: Construction, Analysis, and Interpretation.  Sinauer Assoc., Sunderland, MA.  722 p.

 Caughley, G.  1977.  Analysis of vertebrate populations.  John Wiley and Sons, N.Y.  234 p.

 Poole, R. W.  1974.  An introduction to quantitative ecology.  McGraw-Hill Book Company, N.Y.  532 p.

 Williams, B. K., J. D.  Nichols and M. J. Conroy . 2002. Analysis and Management of Animal Populations. Academic Press, San Diego. 817 p.

  Abundance:

 Seber, G. A. F.  1982.  The estimation of animal abundance and related parameters.  2nd Edition.  Griffin, London.  600 p.

Statistical Methods: .

Burnham, Kenneth P. and David R. Anderson.  2002.  Model Selection and Multimodel Interence: A Practical Information-Theoretic Approach, 2nd ed.  Springer Science, New York, NY. 488 p

Cohen, Jacob  1988.  Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. 2nd. ed. Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., Hillsdale, NJ. 567 p.

Snedechor, G. W. and W. G. Cochran.  1967.  Statistical methods. Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa. 593 p.

 Sokal, R. R. and F. J. Rohlf.  1981.  Biometry.  2nd Edition.  W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco.  859 p.

 Remington, R. D. and M. A. Schork.  1970.  Statistics with applications to the biological and health sciences.  Prentice-Hall, New Jersey.  418 p.

 Schaeffer, R. L., W. Mendenhall, and L. Ott.  1979.  Elementary Survey Sampling.  Second Edition.  Duxbury Press, Mass.  278 p.

 SAS Institute Inc.  2002.  SAS User's Guide:  Basics, 2002 edition.  SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC.  923 p.

 SAS Institute Inc.  2002.  SAS User's Guide:  Statistics, 2002 edition.  SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC.  923 p.

 Siegle, S.  1956.  Nonparametric statistics.  McGraw-Hill Book Company, N.Y.  312 p.

 Zar, J. H.  1999.  Biostatistical Analysis.  4th Edition.  Prentice-Hall, Inc.  Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.  736 p.