ATW 2010 Short Course

Title: Multivariate Study Design and Statistics

Instructor: Michelle Bowman

Course Description: The course is designed to provide the information needed to design multivariate studies and perform multivariate analyses on aquatic ecosystem data.  Considerations in selecting a study design include type of design (BACI, gradient, RCA), detecting ecologically meaningful effects, stratified random sampling, and pseudo-replication.  Participants will learn to use real and simulated pilot data to improve study designs.  The importance of the number of variables and their correlations in choosing the best multivariate models will be explored using example datasets.  Participants will also use ordination and cluster analyses for summarizing habitat and biological community data as well as multivariate methods used to relate habitat and biological patterns.

Instructor biography :
Dr. Michelle Bowman’s training and experience in aquatic ecology and environmental science includes a B.Sc. and M.Sc. (University of Western Ontario), Ph.D. (University of Alberta), PDF (Trent University, University of Toronto) and positions as Research Scientist (Utah State University, University of Saskatchewan).  Her research interests include the effects of natural and human-impacted physical attributes of the environment, biogeochemical cycling, and trophic interactions on the structure and function of benthic algae, macroinvertebrate and fish communities in streams and lakes.  In support of her current research in forensic aquatic ecology, Michelle develops models using biological, chemical and physical landscape data collected along spatial and temporal gradients (both natural and anthropogenic) to develop indicators of change in valued ecosystem attributes.  These models can then be used as tools for impact diagnosis and multiple stressor analyses.

Time: Sunday October 3, 2010, 8:30 am – 4:00 pm (lunch and morning break refreshments provided)

Location: Convention level (lower lobby), Toronto Marriott Eaton Centre, Room TBA

Cost:     $175 ($100 for students) 

Last Updated Saturday, June 5, 2010 19:18 / © ATW 2010