Statistical Ecology - Spatial Ecology Lab, The University of Queensland

Yvonne Buckley uses multi-level mixed effects models to analyse complex spatially hierarchical and longitudinal studies. This is a great technique for working out the spatial scale at which significant variation lies. For invasive plants this means we can determine whether traits differ between native and exotic ranges while taking within range variation (from the individual plant level to population and regional levels) into account.
People	Michael Bode, Yvonne Buckley, Hugh Possingham, Jessie Wells
Collaborators	Tara Martin, UBC Drew Tyre, University of Nebraska Mick McCarthy, ARCUE Brendan Wintle, Environmental Science, University of Melbourne
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Key references	Rhodes, J., T. Wiegand, C. McAlpine, J. Callaghan, D. Lunney, M. Bowen and H. P. Possingham (in press) Modeling Species Distributions to Improve Conservation in Semiurban Landscapes: Koala Case Study. Conservation Biology pdf. Kuhnert, P. M., T. G. Martin, K. Mengersen and H. P. Possingham (2005) Assessing the impacts of grazing levels on bird density in woodland habitat: a Bayesian approach using expert opinion. Environmetrics 16:717-747 pdf Martin, T. G., P. M. Kunhert, K. Mengersen and H. P. Possingham (2005) The power of expert opinion in ecological models using Bayesian methods: Impact of grazing on birds. Ecological Applications 15:266-280 pdf Martin, T. G., B. A. Wintle, J. R. Rhodes, P. M. Kunhert, S. A. Field, S. J. Low-Choy, A. J. Tyre and H. P. Possingham (2005) Zero tolerance ecology: improving ecological inference by modelling the source of zero observation. Ecology Letters 8:1235-1246 pdf; appendices Tyre, A. J., B. Tenhumberg, S. A. Field, D. Niejalke, K. Parris and H. P. Possingham (2003) Improving precision and reducing bias in biological surveys: Estimating false-negative error rates. Ecological Applications 13:1790-1801 McCarthy, M. A., D. B. Lindenmayer and H. P. Possingham (2001) Assessing spatial PVA models of arboreal marsupials using significance tests and bayesian statistics. Biological Conservation 98:191-200 pdf