Thursday, March 29, 2007

This and that...

I'm finally back, after a several-week blogging hiatus. The last few weeks have been incredibly hectic, between working out the final details of my experimental design, writing 3 proposals, and generally preparing for my field season which will begin May 7 (getting permits, equipment, etc etc). Oh yeah, then I took a few days off to go to Big Bend NP in Texas - a much-needed break in an incredibly beautiful spot!!!

I'm beginning the process of learning Bayesian analysis techniques. I contacted Jackie Mohan, a candidate for the EBIO dept's Global Change position, regarding good intro texts, and she made several recommendations. Several of the papers she recommended were helpful and provided a good introduction, especially "Alternatives to statistical hypothesis testing in ecology: A guide to self teaching" by Hobbs and Hilborn (Ecological Applications 16(1): 5-19; 2006).

I also purchased several Bayesian Analysis textbooks (thank goodness for cheap used textbook websites - how did I ever manage to get through undergrad without the internet?!?) and am starting to work through them. Interestingly, we've been discussing Bayesian techniques quite a bit in my Phylogenetics class as well, and we even have an "expert" in the use of likelihood and Bayesian techniques for phylogenetic studies speaking to our class next week.

1 comment:

Mike said...

cool. keep us posted.

i'd be interested to see a bayes-for-dummies type cookbook example of the simplest analysis just to get a sense of what one does to actually carry out an analysis.

i'll look around myself and we can compare notes.