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Eukaryotic metabarcoding (EUKB01)
Course Overview: Metabarcoding techniques are a set of novel genetic tools for assessing biodiversity of natural communities. Their potential applications include (but are not limited to) accurate water quality, soil diversity assessment, trophic analyses of digestive contents, early detection of non-indigenous species, studies of global ecological patterns and biomonitoring of anthropogenic impacts. This course will give an overview of metabarcoding procedures with an emphasis on practical problem-solving and hands-on work using analysis pipelines on real datasets. After completing the course,…
Find out more »Phytomappers Pro,: A Master Class for Mapping Plants With Drones
Course Overview: Phytomappers Pro was created to scale drone education for agricultural and other related verticals, such as scientific, forestry, and environmental consultancies. This course walks step-by-step through everything you'd need to know to get started mapping plants professionally, including: • The theory behind vegetation indices, such as NDVI • Best-practices for image capture • Drone and camera hardware • Mission planning software • Image processing and data outputs using Pix4D • Cloud tools • Example datasets We teach you…
Find out more »A Quickstart Guide to Plants and Drones for Professionals
Course Overview: The Quick-start Guide to Plants and Drones is a FREE course! The goal of this course is to bring students up to speed quickly on the commercial drone industry and specifically where plant mapping fits in. The class provides a general overview of where the drone industry has been and where it is headed next, specifically as it relates to plant-related industries, including agriculture, forestry, scientific, and more. This course assumes you are a professional (or want to…
Find out more »International Seabird Group Confrence
About The next International Seabird Group Conference is being organised by Jon Green and Samantha Patrick and colleagues from the University of Liverpool. The conference promises to provide an exciting showcase of the latest seabird research, located within the heart of the city of Liverpool, famous for its maritime history and cultural diversity. Keynote speakers and early career events will compliment two and a half days of talks and posters, covering all aspects of seabird research. The Seabird Group registered…
Find out more »Introduction to Linux workflows for biologists (IBUL03)
Course Overview: Most high-throughput bioinformatics work these days takes place on the Linux command line. The programs which do the majority of the computational heavy lifting — genome assemblers, read mappers, and annotation tools — are designed to work best when used with a command-line interface. Because the command line can be an intimidating environment, many biologists learn the bare minimum needed to get their analysis tools working. This means that they miss out on the power of Linux to…
Find out more »Time series models for ecologists (TSME02)
Course Overview: This course will cover time series analysis with a particular focus on applications in ecology. All methods will be illustrated using the free, open-source software package R. Time Series data are ubiquitous in the physical sciences, and models for their behaviour enable scientists to understand temporal dynamics and predict future values. Participants will be taught a wide range of suitable time series models for both discrete and continuous time systems. The course will cover a range of techniques…
Find out more »Introduction to Frequentist and Bayesian mixed (Hierarchical) models (IFBM01)
Course Overview: This course will cover introductory mixed or hierarchical modelling (fixed and random effects models) for real-world data sets from both a Frequentist and Bayesian perspective. These methods lie at the forefront of statistics research and are a vital tool in the scientist’s toolbox. The course focuses on introducing concepts and demonstrating good practice in mixed modelling. All methods are demonstrated with data sets which participants can run themselves. Participants will be taught how to fit hierarchical models using both the standard lme4…
Find out more »Applied Bayesian modelling for ecologists and epidemiologists (ABME04)
Course Overview: This application-driven course will provide a founding in the basic theory & practice of Bayesian statistics, with a focus on MCMC modeling for ecological & epidemiological problems. Starting from a refresher on probability & likelihood, the course will take students all the way to cutting-edge applications such as state-space population modelling & spatial point-process modelling. By the end of the week, you should have a basic understanding of how common MCMC samplers work and how to program them,…
Find out more »Introduction to bioinformatics for DNA and RNA sequence analysis (IBDR01)
Course Overview: Analysis of high throughput genome and transcriptome data is major component of many research projects ranging from large-scale precision medicine efforts to focused investigations in model systems. This analysis involves the identification of specific genome or transcriptome features that predispose individuals to disease, predict response to therapies, influence diagnosis/prognosis, or provide mechanistic insights into disease models. During this course (PMBI01), students will perform an example end-to-end bioinformatics analysis of genome (WGS and Exome) and transcriptome (RNA-seq) data. Students…
Find out more »Introduction to R for biologists (IRFB02)
Course overview: The course will consist of a series of 8 modules each lasting roughly half a day, and designed to build required skills for subsequent modules and more advanced courses. At its conclusion, participants will have acquired basic skills in coding with R, and will be able to perform and interpret simple analyses, and critically evaluate similar analyses from the scientific literature and technical reports. Intended Audience The course is aimed at biologists with no experience using the software…
Find out more »Phylogenetic comparative methods for studying diversification and phenotypic evolution (PCME01)
Course Overview: Phylogenetic comparative methods are commonly used nowadays to investigate how species diversification occurs and to test hypotheses about the mechanisms that drive phenotypic evolution, e.g. to model speciation and extinction, to understand why some groups are more diverse than others, to test whether phenotypic traits have evolved under neutral, directional or diversifying selection, to investigate how evolutionary rates are modified across the evolutionary history of a group etc. In all these cases, a phylogenetic hypothesis for the group…
Find out more »Structural Equation Modelling for Ecologists and Evolutionary Biologists (SEMR02)
Course Overview: The course is a primer on structural equation modelling (SEM) and confirmatory path analysis, with an emphasis on practical skills and applications to real-world data. Structural equation modelling is a rapidly growing technique in ecology and evolution that unites multiple hypotheses in a single causal network. It provides an intuitive graphical representation of relationships among variables, underpinned by well-described mathematical estimation procedures. Several advances in SEM over the past few years have expanded its utility for typical ecological…
Find out more »Functional ecology from organism to ecosystem: theory and computation (FEER01)
Course Overview: The course will describe different aspects and methods in the field of functional ecology, combining theoretical lessons with hands-on real data. Lectures will provide the theoretical and mathematical basis for different applications of functional traits at organismal, community and ecosystem levels, with examples across different trophic levels. This will serve as a basis for exploring the practical tools to connect the effect of land-use and climate change on biodiversity to the effect of biodiversity on to multiple ecosystem…
Find out more »Statistical modelling of time-to-event data using survival analysis: an introduction for animal behaviourists, ecologists and evolutionary biologists (TTED01)
Course Overview: Survival analysis is a set of statistical methods initially designed to analyse data giving the times at which individuals die, and assess the effect that different predictor variables have on the rate of death. However, its applications are much broader than this: it can be used to analyse any time-to-event data. Ecologists and evolutionary biologists often encounter data of this kind. Often factors influencing survival itself will be of interest. But there are many other cases, e.g. what…
Find out more »Advancing in statistical modelling for evolutionary biologists and ecologists using R (ADVR08)
Course Overview: This course will provide an introduction to working with real-life data typical of those encountered in the field of evolutionary biology and ecology. The course will be delivered by Dr. Luc Bussiere, Dr. Tom Houslay and Dr. Ane Timenes Laugen who are all practicing academics in the field of evolutionary biology. This five day course will consist of series of modules (each lasting roughly half a day) covering model selection and simplification, generalised linear models, mixed effects models, and non-linear models. Along…
Find out more »Aquatic Acoustic Telemetry Data Analysis (ATDA01)
Course Overview: To follow Intended Audience Anyone using acoustic telemetry methods for tracking aquatic animals Venue - PR statistics head office, 53 Morrison Street, Glasgow, G5 8LB - Google map Availability - 30 places Duration – 5 days Contact hours – Approx. 35 hours ECT’s – Equal to 3 ECT’s Language - English Packages We offer COURSE ONLY and ACCOMMODATION PACKAGES; • COURSE ONLY – Includes lunch and refreshments. • ACCOMMODATION PACKAGE (to be purchased in addition to the course only option) – Includes breakfast, lunch,…
Find out more »Designing reliable and efficient experiments for social sciences (DRES01)
Course Overview: This course aims to help you to draw better statistical inferences from empirical research, improve the statistical questions you ask when you collect data, design better and more efficient studies, and improve your meta-analytic thinking. In practical, hands on assignments, you will learn techniques and tools that can be immediately implemented in your own research, such as thinking about the smallest effect size you are interested in, justifying your sample size, evaluate findings in the literature while keeping…
Find out more »Reproducible data science for population genetics (RDPG02)
Course Overview: With the increasing availability of various types of genetic and genomic data, population genetics and molecular ecology are becoming largely data driven sciences. Understanding the evolutionary, demographic, and ecological underpinning the genetic makeup of natural populations now relies on a combination of exploratory approaches and models. This course will provide an in-depth introduction to these techniques, with a strong emphasis on reproducibility though the use of modern analytic practices and tools. After an introduction to phylogenetic reconstruction, the…
Find out more »Movement ecology (MOVE02)
Course Overview: The course will cover the concepts, technology and software tools that can be used to analyse movement data (from ringing/CMR to VHF/GPS to novel biologging data) in ecology and evolution, covering analysis techniques applicable broadly to most taxa, from micro-organisms to plants and animals. We will cover elementary and advanced analysis and modelling techniques broadly applicable across taxa, highlighting the advantages of a unified Movement Ecology framework. We will provide the necessary bases in ecology (especially behavioural ecology),…
Find out more »Bioacoustics for ecologists: Hardware, Survey design and Data analysis (BIAC01)
Course Overview: Coming soon. Intended Audience Coming soon Venue - PR statistics head office, 53 Morrison Street, Glasgow, G5 8LB – Google map Availability - 30 places Duration – 5 days Contact hours – Approx. 35 hours ECT’s – Equal to 3 ECT’s Language - English Packages We offer COURSE ONLY and ACCOMMODATION PACKAGES; • COURSE ONLY – Includes lunch and refreshments. • ACCOMMODATION PACKAGE (to be purchased in addition to the course only option) – Includes breakfast, lunch, welcome dinner Monday…
Find out more »Ecological niche modelling using R (ENMR03)
Course Overview: The course will cover the base theory of ecological niche modelling and its main methodologies. By the end of this 5-day practical course, attendees will have the capacity to perform ecological niche models and understand their results, as well as to choose and apply the correct methodology depending on the aim of their type of study and data. Ecological niche, species distribution, habitat distribution, or climatic envelope models are different names for similar mechanistic or correlative models, empirical…
Find out more »Landscape genetic/genomic data analysis using R (LNDG03)
Course Overview: The term ‘landscape genetics’ has been applied studies that integrate ecological context and intervening landscape into population genetic analyses of contemporary processes such as gene flow and migration. This course will cover the basics of both quantitative landscape ecology and population genetics, focusing on how we develop and evaluate spatial/genetic analyses using the R platform. Intended Audience This course is suitable for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and primary investigators interested in learning how to integrate landscape ecological and…
Find out more »Machine learning using R (MLUR01)
Course Overview: This workshop will provide attendees with the opportunity to learn how to use machine learning to analyze data coming from diverse data domains and scientific disciplines and without necessarily prior knowledge of the scientific discipline where the data are coming from. Attendees will learn how to use R and several R packages including classification and regression trees, ensembles and bagging, random forests, neural networks, and boosting (learning from mistakes). These techniques will be used for data classification, determining…
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