This is a new course, offered for the first time in the fall of 2004
 

ENT 555

Applied Design and Analysis of Ecological Field Experiments

Fall 2004, 2 credits
T-R, 9-10am

 

 

Course Description

This course will provide a modern overview of the application of experimental design and statistical analysis to field experiments in ecology. The course is unique because of: 1) its focus on advanced statistical approaches in the specialized discipline of Field Ecology, and 2) its inclusion of participatory discussions of examples from the literature of particularly effective (or ineffective) uses of the techniques discussed. The class will be taught Tuesday and Thursday, with the Tuesday session a lecture presenting an overview of that week’s topic provided by the instructor, and the Thursday session a student-led group discussion of primary literature examples of the technique or approach. The final third of the semester will consist of student presentations of independent projects and related literature. These presentations will be student analyses of either their own data (preferred), or of data sets provided by the instructor (for students too early in their graduate careers to have generated their own data).

Primary Text:

Gotelli, N. J. and A. M. Ellison. 2004. A primer of ecological statistics. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA. ISBN: 0-87893-269-0

Supplemental Texts:

Grimm, L. D. and P. R. Yarnold. 2003. Reading and understanding multivariate statistics. American Psychological Association, Washington, D. C.


 

Syllabus

August 24-Sept. 9: Review of fundamentals, summary statistics (Chap. 1-3)

September 14, 16: Hypothesis testing, statistical frameworks, intro to experimental design (Chap. 4-5, start 6). Journal articles in publication bias, the subjectivity of P = 0.05.

September 21, 23: Designing experiments, types of experimental designs (Chap. 6-7). Journal articles in Bonferroni correction

September 28, 39: ANOVA (Chap 9-10). Journal articles in interpretation of complex ANOVA tables.

October 5, 7: Bayesian & other non-traditional approaches (Chap 5). Journal articles in Bayesian analysis.

-- take home exam 1 --

October 12, 14: Categorical data (Chap 11). Journal articles demonstrating the analysis of categorical data.

October 19, 21: Following species responses through time: Repeated measures ANOVA and MANOVA. Journal articles Snyder and Ives (2001, 2003).

October 26, 28: Introduction to the analysis of multivariate data (Chap 12), and relevant papers to discuss.

November 2, 4: Searching for trends among published studies: vote counting and meta-analysis approaches. A comparison of the meta-analyses of Halaj and Wise (2001) and Schmitz et al. (2000).

-- take home exam 2 --

November 9 (Nov. 11 is Veteran’s Day holiday): Begin student presentations of independent projects.

November 16, 18: TBA; November 23, 25: Thanksgiving vacation

December 2, 7, 9: Continue student presentations of independent projects

Grading:

Leading discussion: 20%
Discussion participation, quizzes: 20%
Take home exams: 30%
Independent project, presentation: 30%

Instructor
Instructor: William E. Snyder
Department of Entomology
264 FSHN Building
Phone: 335-3724
Email: wesnyder@wsu.edu
http://entomology.wsu.edu/personal/bill_snyder

Hand-removing spiders from field plots enclosed by an aluminum flashing fence.
 
 

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