As Earth faces the greatest mass extinction in 65 million years, the present is a moment of tremendous foment and emergence in ecological science. With leaps in advances in ecological research and the technical tools available, scientists face the critical task of challenging policymakers and the public to recognize the urgency of our global crisis. This book focuses directly on the interplay between theory, data, and analytical methodology in the rapidly evolving fields of animal ecology, conservation, and management. The mixture of topics of particular current relevance includes landscape ecology, remote sensing, spatial modeling, geostatistics, genomics, and ecological informatics. The greatest interest to the practicing scientist and graduate student will be the synthesis and integration of these topics to provide a composite view of the emerging field of spatial ecological informatics and its applications in research and management.

With its focus on the practical application of the techniques of multivariate statistics, this book shapes the powerful tools of statistics for the specific needs of ecologists and makes statistics more applicable to their course of study. It gives readers a solid conceptual understanding of the role of multivariate statistics in ecological applications and the relationships among various techniques, while avoiding detailed mathematics and the underlying theory. More importantly, the reader will gain insight into the type of research questions best handled by each technique and the important considerations in applying them. Whether used as a textbook for specialised courses or as a supplement to general statistics texts, the book emphasises those techniques that students of ecology and natural resources most need to understand and employ in their research. While targeted for upper-division and graduate students in wildlife biology, forestry, and ecology, and for professional wildlife scientists and natural resource managers, this book will also be valuable to researchers in any of the biological sciences.

As Earth faces the greatest mass extinction in 65 million years, the present is a moment of tremendous foment and emergence in ecological science. With leaps in advances in ecological research and the technical tools available, scientists face the critical task of challenging policymakers and the public to recognize the urgency of our global crisis. This book focuses directly on the interplay between theory, data, and analytical methodology in the rapidly evolving fields of animal ecology, conservation, and management. The mixture of topics of particular current relevance includes landscape ecology, remote sensing, spatial modeling, geostatistics, genomics, and ecological informatics. The greatest interest to the practicing scientist and graduate student will be the synthesis and integration of these topics to provide a composite view of the emerging field of spatial ecological informatics and its applications in research and management.

Wildlife researchers and ecologists make widespread use of multivariate statistics in their studies. With its focus on the practical application of the techniques of multivariate statistics, this book shapes the powerful tools of statistics for the specific needs of ecologists and makes statistics more applicable to their course of study. Multivariate Statistics for Wildlife and Ecology Research gives the reader a solid conceptual understanding of the role of multivariate statistics in ecological applications and the relationships among various techniques, while avoiding detailed mathematics and underlying theory. More important, the reader will gain insight into the type of research questions best handled by each technique and the important considerations in applying each one. Whether used as a textbook for specialized courses or as a supplement to general statistics texts, the book emphasizes those techniques that students of ecology and natural resources most need to understand and employ in their research. Detailed examples use real wildlife data sets analyzed using the SAS statistical software program. The book is specifically targeted for upper-division and graduate students in wildlife biology, forestry, and ecology, and for professional wildlife scientists and natural resource managers, but it will be valuable to researchers in any of the biological sciences. Kevin McGarigal is Assistant Professor and Sam Cushman is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management at the University of Massachusetts. Susan Stafford is Head of the Forest Science Department at Colorado State University.