An Easy-to-Understand Treatment of Ecological Sampling Methods and Data Analysis
Including only the necessary mathematical derivations, Introduction to Ecological Sampling shows how to use sampling procedures for ecological and environmental studies. It incorporates both traditional sampling methods and recent developments in environmental and ecological sampling methods.
After an introduction, the book presents standard sampling methods and analyses. Subsequent chapters delve into specialized topics written by well-known researchers. These chapters cover adaptive sampling methods, line transect sampling, removal and change-in-ratio methods, plotless sampling, mark-recapture sampling of closed and open populations, occupancy models, sampling designs for environmental modeling, and trend analysis.
The book explains the methods as simply as possible, keeping equations and their derivations to a minimum. It provides references to important, more advanced sampling methods and analyses. It also directs readers to computer programs that can be used to perform the analyses.
Accessible to biologists, the text only assumes a basic knowledge of statistical methods. It is suitable for an introductory course on methods for collecting and analyzing ecological and environmental data.
"Manly and Navarro Alberto present a variety of both classical and modern statistical sampling techniques that are used in environmental/ecological applications. This practical and accessible monograph was a pleasure to read. Each chapter includes contributions from notable researchers, with topics ranging from adaptive sampling to line transect sampling methods, removal/change-in-ratio methods to plotless sampling, capture–recapture methods to environmental and trend analysis, as well as many others. A great beauty of this book is its wealth of worked examples based on real problems involving ecological data; the examples are well presented, clear and really easy to follow. I strongly recommend having R open in front of you when working through examples so that you can go through the analysis yourself. The book is presented in a very pragmatic fashion whereby most chapters begin by discussing key assumptions (i.e. those made prior to sampling/constructing the design) and close with an explanation of how to interpret the final results...There is also a helpful companion website to give readers additional details on data sets and software. The target audience is clearly intended to be ecologists, but overall I found that most chapters were quite general...Like many of Bryan Manly’s books, this is a very polished and expertly organised monograph. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in sampling methods in ecology. I’m sure many readers will enjoy this monograph as much as I did!"
―Jakub Stoklosa, The University of New South Wales, Australia, in Australian & New Zealand Journal of Statistics, October 2016
"From estimating sperm whale abundance using line transect sampling to monitoring the trend of mercury concentrations in a lake using mixed models, Introduction to Ecological Sampling provides the reader with a swath of interesting examples as it presents techniques for ecological sampling...Through useful, clear diagrams, and examples using real data, the authors explain several rather complex sampling designs with great clarity...I think the greatest strength of this book is the extensive referencing in each chapter. It is clear that in each chapter the authors know the present state of the field and therefore provide the necessary references to delve deeper into a particular method...The draft version of the book served as the class notes for an online course taught by one of the editors (Bryan Manly). For the seasoned ecological sampler, the current version of the text may suffice as a textbook for a class on ecological sampling...More than its use in the classroom, I see this book as a great introduction to ecological sampling for the independent learner, whether they are a survey statistician who wants to learn about techniques for ecological examples or an ecologist who wants to learn more about adaptive sampling because they read the phrase in an article. Introduction to Ecological Sampling is impressively both thorough and concise in its coverage of estimating population abundance and other ecological quantities. For those interested in these topics, I recommend, at the very least, that you put it on your bookshelf and crack it open when you are confronted with a difficult ecological sampling problem."
―Kelly McConville, Swarthmore College, in The American Statistician, March 2016
