Quantitative Methods for Marine Ecology and Conservation

Catalog description

The goal of this course is to learn the foundations of ecological modeling with a specific (but not exclusive) focus on marine conservation and sustainable exploitation of renewable resources. Students will be introduced to a range of methods - from basic to advanced - to characterize population structure, conduct demographic analyses, estimate extinction risk, identify temporal trends and spatial patterns, quantify the effect of environmental determinants and anthropogenic pressures on the dynamics of marine populations, describe the potential for adaptation to climate change. This course will emphasize learning by doing, and will rely heavily on practical computer laboratories, in R and/or Phyton, based on data from our own research activities or peer reviewed publications. Students with a background knowledge of statistics, programming and calculus will be most welcome. A limited travel stipend may be available for students traveling to Hopkins Marine Station - located approximately 80 miles south of Stanford's main campus in Pacific Grove, CA. For information about spending a quarter in residence at Hopkins Marine Station please see here.