BES Facebook pageBES Annual Meeting 2010
7 - 9 September,
University of Leeds, UK
Advances in Modelling Ecological Data
Dr Dylan Childs and Dr David Murrell
The rapid advancement of computing processor power means that now one can derive and parameterise models that reflect the requirements of a specific ecological question, rather than relying on ‘canned’ routines. However, many of the techniques being developed (eg Bayesian fitting methods) might seem out of reach and mysterious to many ecologists. This Thematic Topic Session will be used as a vehicle to showcase the new wave of modelling techniques, so that more ecologists will be familiar with what is available; the data requirements for the techniques; how other datasets might be used; and importantly the people who can help.
Keynote speaker:
Dr Aaron King, University of Michigan, USA
As scientists, we seek mechanistic understanding of ecological phenomena. Dynamical models are central to this enterprise. Inference for such models has been extremely challenging and most existing inference methods severely restrict the questions that can be asked. In contrast, flexible "plug-and-play" methods accelerate progress by allowing one to entertain multiple competing hypotheses. I will describe several such methods via real ecological examples and will introduce new software, pomp, that implements several plug-and-play methods.
Invited speakers:
Dr Jarrod Hadfield, University of Edinburgh, UK
Dr Dylan Childs, University of Sheffield, UK
Dr Tom Ezard, Imperial College London, UK
Prof Otso Ovaskainen
If you have any comments or questions on this thematic topic, please contact Dylan directly.
