Introduction to WinBUGS for Ecologists Bayesian approach to regression, ANOVA, mixed models and related analyses

Bayesian statistics has exploded into biology and its sub-disciplines such as ecology over the past decade. The free software program WinBUGS and its open-source sister OpenBugs is currently the only flexible and general-purpose program available with which the average ecologist can conduct their own standard and non-standard Bayesian statistics. Introduction to WINBUGS for Ecologists goes right to the heart of the matter by providing ecologists with a comprehensive, yet concise, guide to applying WinBUGS to the types of models that they use most often: linear (LM), generalized linear (GLM), linear mixed (LMM) and generalized linear mixed models (GLMM).

Introduction to WinBUGS for Ecologists combines the use of simulated data sets "paired" analyses using WinBUGS (in a Bayesian framework for analysis) and in R (in a frequentist mode of inference) and uses a very detailed step-by-step tutorial presentation style that really lets the reader repeat every step of the application of a given mode in their own research.

• Introduction to the essential theories of key models used by ecologists
• Complete juxtaposition of classical analyses in R and Bayesian analysis of the same models in WinBUGS
• Provides every detail of R and WinBUGS code required to conduct all analyses
• Companion Web Appendix that contains all code contained in the book and additional material (including more code and solutions to exercises)

Dr. Marc works as a senior scientist at the Swiss Ornithological Institute, Seerose 1, 6204 Sempach, Switzerland. This is a non-profit NGO with about 160 employees dedicated primarily to bird research, monitoring, and conservation. Marc was trained as a plant population ecologist at the Swiss Universities of Basel and Zuerich. After a 2-year postdoc at the (then) USGS Patuxent Wildlife Center in Laurel, MD. During the last 20 years he has worked at the interface between population ecology, biodiversity monitoring, wildlife management, and statistics. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and five textbooks on applied statistical modeling. He has also been very active in teaching fellow biologists and wildlife managers the concepts and tools of modern statistical analysis in their fields in workshops all over the world, something which goes together with his books, which target the same audiences.