Statistical Methods for the Environment and Ecology (8 ECTS)

    Course Code: 
    6058
    Semester: 
    8th
    Elective Courses
    Διδάσκων: 

    BESBEAS PANAGIOTIS

    General overview of topics and problems of interest in environmental statistics and ecology. Criteria of weighing environmental pollutants. Applications of stochastic  models in checking the keeping or violation of weighing criteria. Statistical analysis and modeling of extreme values (for example, exceeding the pollutant concentration threshold). Natural process of pollutant diffusion and dilution, and the Plume model of spatial and time distribution of pollutant concentration. The theory of stochastic dilution and asymptotic lognormal diffusion processes for modeling point concentration of pollutants. Introduction to spatial statistics methods, models and estimating the function of spatial scatter (variogram) and the Kringing regression.

    Data types from studies of biological organizations and examples. Preliminary analysis of characteristic data sets. Special characteristics of sample distributions and the appropriate models, such as truncated, inflated, mixed. Overdispersion, underdispersion and appropriate models. Individual heterogeneity models. Model fit using maximum likelihood through arithmetic methods and the use of statistical packages (R). Estimating population size and variance. Methods of census and distance sampling. Capture – Recapture methodologies for closed and open populations. Ecological time series and their characteristics. Stochastic models of population dynamics: state – space models and models for simultaneous analyses of survival and census. Examples and applications.

    Recommended Reading

    • Ott, W. R. (1995): Environmental Statistics and Data Analysis, CRC Press, Inc.
    • Barnett, V. (2004): Environmental Statistics: Methods and Applications, Wiley.
    • Le, N.D. and Zidek, J.V. (2006): Statistical Analysis of Environmental Space-Time Processes, Springer.
    • Williams, K., Nichols, J. and Conroy, M. J. (2002): Analysis and Management of Animal Populations. Academic Press, San Diego, California.
    • Μπεσμπέας, Π. (2010): Στατιστικές Μέθοδοι στην Οικολογία, Πανεπιστημιακές Σημειώσεις
    • Καρανδεινός Γ. Μ. (2007): Ποσοτικές Οικολογικές Μέθοδοι, Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κρήτης
    • Σαϊτάνης K., Καρανδεινός Γ.K. (2010): Πληθυσμιακή οικολογία - δυναμική πληθυσμών. Έμβρυο.