Quantitative Analysis of Ecological Data

(Course Code: 121KEY, Course outline)

Semester: 6 Teaching Credits:  4 ECTS Credits: 6 Type:
Optional Compulsory
Prerequisite Courses: Statistics Course type: Skills development Instructor:
Nikolaos Fyllas

(a) To understand the basic principles of experimental design and methods of analysis and interpretation of ecological data.

(b) To select the appropriate method of ecological data analysis

Topics per Week:

Lectures:

  1. Basic Statistics and Experimental Design
  2. Community structure (distribution models, alpha diversity indices)
  3. Species population metrics
  4. Measuring diversity in different spatial scales (beta and gamma diversity)
  5. Biological and Environmental Metrics
  6. Species distribution, Niche overlap indicesΣυναρτήσεις Αποστάσεων και Ομοιοτήτων
  7. Distance and similarity metrics
  8. Correlation Analysis
  9. Principal Components Analysis
  10. Cluster Analysis
  11. One-way Analysis of Variance
  12. Two and three-way Analysis of Variance
  13. Linear Regression Analysis

Laboratory Exercises and Fieldwork:

  1. Introduction to ecological data analysis with R (1)
  2. Introduction to ecological data analysis with R (1)
  3. Extracting and managing environmental data with R
  4. Field Measurements Ι
  5. Ecological databases
  6. Community Structure – Biodiversity metrics
  7. Correlation Analysis
  8. Distance and similarity metrics
  9. Cluster Analysis
  10. Field Measurements ΙΙ
  11. Analysis of variance
  12. Linear Regression Analysis
  13. Deriving the species niche
3
Exercises – Laboratories
(hours / week):
3
Other Activities: Fieldwork and measurements (at least two visits)
Grading:

Written Exams (50%), Labwork deliverables (50%)
Notes:

Tutor’s notes
Basic Textbook:
Bibliography:
Language:

The course is taught in Greek. The course is taught in Greek. For exchange students the following book is suggested:  Michael J. Crawley: (2014). The R Book
Internet Links:  

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