For wildlife conservation professionals & students
4 weeks: 21 Nov to 18 Dec 2022
Deadline: Friday 18 Nov 2022 @ 13:00 UTC
Online, part-time, sociable
Introduction to Occupancy modelling
Analyse species distributions in R, Nov-Dec 22
£7 - £97
For wildlife conservation professionals & students
4 weeks: 21 Nov to 18 Dec 2022
Deadline: Friday 18 Nov 2022 @ 13:00 UTC
Online, part-time, sociable
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Description
Upcoming learning opportunities are listed on our Courses page, or you can join our mail-list to stay informed about future courses, events and resources
A 4-week introductory course in Occupancy modelling for wildlife conservation practitioners and students.
This course focusses on giving you a strong grasp of the fundamental ideas behind occupancy modelling. Take this course if you want to:
Build your confidence in using this versatile analysis method!
Want to know more before signing up? We’ve got you covered!
Scroll down to learn more, or jump straight to price, the learning objectives, or a brief summary of occupancy modelling
Are you a wildlife conservation professional or student who wants to learn (or re-learn!) the fundamental knowledge and skills of occupancy modelling to assess species distributions? Then yes, it’s for you!
The course is suitable for complete beginners to occupancy modelling, or those wanting to refresh their skills. You do need to have R installed on your computer, and be familiar with basic R functions such as importing .csv data
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
Weekly topics:
A future course will cover how to incorporate covariates (environmental/sociological data) into your analysis, to assess which factors affect the distribution of the species
We believe that every wildlife conservationist should have access to high-quality, sociable learning opportunities
Sliding scale of course fees:
£7 - £27 - £47 | Individuals in low- or middle-income countries |
£37 - £67 - £97 | Individuals in high-income countries |
See a map1 or list2 of countries by income level
If you cannot pay by credit or debit card, please email lucy [dot] tallents [at] verdantlearn [dot] com
to arrange an alternative payment method, e.g. Paypal
Learning materials to teach yourself occupancy modeling to exist, but they are hard to find, and it can be even harder to motivate yourself to study alone.
By paying for a course, you gain these benefits:
To participate, you need to:
We’ll be using R to conduct the analysis, and you can prepare your field data in Excel or similar
If you would like to hear about future learning opportunities with VerdantLearn, join our mail-list
Occupancy modelling is a versatile data analysis technique for understanding the spatial distribution of species, and the factors affecting their distribution
It is especially useful for monitoring species which are hard to observe in the field (nocturnal, rare or wary of humans), or cannot be identified individually
Unlike population estimates such as Capture Mark Recapture, occupancy modelling doesn’t require data on recognisable individuals. In fact, you don’t even have to see the species at all! Instead, you can use a wide range of field signs, including tracks, nests, faeces, feeding signs etc. Occupancy modelling can also accept data from camera-traps, hair traps or eDNA. Basically, any type of survey that allows you to detect if the species is present can be used for occupancy modelling! This means you can make efficient use of existing field data
You need to have field data from repeat surveys
Repeat surveys allow you to determine whether a failure to record the species is because it is absent from the site, or if it is present but you have simply failed to detect it. You can also combine your species or sign observations with environmental data (known as covariates) to determine what factors affect the species’ distribution, including things like the presence or abundance of food sources, predators, or human activities.