International Workshop

Another International Specialist Workshop on Applied Hierarchical Modelling of Species Distribution and Abundance with R package unmarked and spOccupancy Workshop was at Knowledge Exchange for Innovation Center, King Mongkut University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand. This International Specialist Workshop dedicated to our founder Uncle Mike Meredith. This workshop attracted 33 participants from universities and NGO around

This was a 6-day workshop with the first half spent reviewing Bayesian analysis of occupancy data with JAGS, and the second half devoted to Multispecies Occupancy models. We were pleased to welcome Marc Kéry of the Swiss Ornithological Institute back to Malaysia for his second workshop with us.

Dr Freya St. John of the University of Kent and Dr Aidan Keane of Edinburgh University led this workshop, focusing on the use of questionnaire surveys in relation to wildlife conservation, but also placing this research in the context of social science. A key component was the use of special methods to elicit information on sensitive or illegal activities. 

Dr Marc Kéry of the Swiss Ornithological Institute gave us a gentle introduction to the Bayesian analysis of a broad array of model classes relevant to population ecologists. The content was based on selections of his two existing books, Introduction to WinBUGS for ecologists and Bayesian population analysis co-authored with Michael Schaub, and an upcoming book being written with Andy Royle. 

Dr Jane Elith and Dr Joanne Potts of University of Melbourne (Australia) led our third international workshop, which featured the use of R packages to prepare data sets and generation of models using both MaxEnt and regression methods, including Boosted Regression Trees (BRT). The 30 participants were mostly from Malaysian conservation NGOs, universities and government agencies,

For our second international workshop, we invited Dr Murray Efford of the University of Otago (NZ) to join us in KL. Murray is the author of program DENSITY and the ‘secr’ package for R software. He introduced the theory of SECR as well as showing participants how to use his ‘products’. There was also a brief discussion

For our first international workshop in Malaysia, we invited Darryl MacKenzie of Proteus Wildlife Research Consultants to present the latest methods for modeling patterns and dynamics of species occurrence in a landscape while accounting for the imperfect detection of the species. Participants were introduced to the PRESENCE software package through worked examples, as well as some analyses