Statistical models for wildlife population assessment and conservation
Dates and Location: 7-11 January 2019, University of Kent, Canterbury Campus
Deadline for Applications: (Extended) 5pm on Wednesday 31st October 2018, by emailing advancedtraining@kent.ac.uk with a completed application form
Specifications: We have 30 fully-funded places (inc. travel within the UK and accommodation); priority will be given to NERC-funded PhD students but if spaces remain we are able to offer the funded places to other UK-based PhD students and early-career researchers.
Description:
Within the environmental sector there is currently a shortage of practitioners equipped with the statistical modelling skills to carry out reliable population assessments. Consequently, environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and development mitigation projects often use population assessment protocols that are not fit-for-purpose. The skills shortage arises because (1) recent advances in statistical models for population assessment are largely confined to the academic sector with little penetration to the end-users; and (2) although many postgraduate programmes have a statistical modelling training component, this often fails to expose PhD students to new models in the area and the potential applications these have for conservation practice. This training programme will provide a cohort of PhD students and early career researchers/practitioners with the relevant modelling skills required for a career that involves wildlife population assessment for conservation.
The workshop will focus on ecological questions that arise in conservation practice and use real case study data. Training will include individual-based models, such as capture-recapture, but will also embrace scenarios more frequently used in EIA, such as batch-marked, presence/absence, site occupancy and counts. Applications will include newts, butterflies, birds, bees, beetles, ibex and bats. Each module will be accompanied by a practical computer session using R and each module builds on the last so that delegates build a portfolio of statistical skills.
More detailed information about the workshop timetable and training outcomes is available here.
Trainers: Dr Rachel McCrea, Dr Eleni Matechou, Dr Diana Cole, Richard Griffiths.