Customer Reviews

Ecological Models and Data in R

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book, in part, was developed from Dr. Bolker's graduate course in Ecological Models and Data at the University of Florida. This was the best course I took as a graduate student, it transformed the set of quantitative tools I was able to bring to bear on ecological questions. There was so much worthwhile material covered in this class that I took it twice (UF only counted the first time:). Since graduate school I still frequently refer to my notes from the class. With the publication of "Ecological Models and Data in R" even those who didn't have the good fortune of being in Bolker's class can learn approaches for integrating ecological theory and data. Bolker's book covers much of the material from his course and thus is an excellent resource for graduate students and faculty alike.

I'm doing infectious disease modeling for a living, and I got a lot out of this book. I was not too familiar with R and with stochastic models. Reading and working through this book taught me a lot. The book is really meant to be worked through carefully. Ben drops nuggets of wisdom everywhere - but you need to read carefully to catch them. It's not the ideal book if you need a quick reference on how to do "X". But as a textbook and to really learn things, it is great. That said, I would hesitate to use it for a real beginner's class. Some background with statistical concepts and a solid math foundation are necessary. And some programming experience, with either R or another language, helps a lot. If students are too weak in any of these areas, it would be hard to teach the material in a single semester course. But the great thing about this book is that anyone motivated to learn the subject matter can "simply" sit down and work through it on their own and at their own pace. It will take time, but it's totally worth it.

I am a molecular biologist, trying to work my way through some ecological modeling. I found this book quite useful, since it has lot of examples and details. There is an online supplement for this book, where you can get all the scripts and pdf versions of the chapters, if you want. the R supplements, and the scripts give you a hands-on experience in handling the data in R. Tests like maximum likelihood, monte carlo are explained very well, and the R scripts help in understanding the nitty-gritties of programming. All in all, a good book.

I have the paper version and I was thinking on getting instead the Kindle version, but it is a bad conversion. Just download the sample and you will see. Not worth $9.99, much less $29 when they didn't take the time to make a proper conversion. The layout is messed up and the spacing suggest the ebook creation was done automatically and no one took a look at the end result.

Very disappointing that so many ebooks keep having this problem.

good, except that I was waiting this product for a pretty long time, even though it was still before the due day.

The best book I ever read about statistical modeling. Goes into details but still very accessible.

Very nice book, especially versatile for many applications other than ecology problems. Clarity on writing.

I am currently taking a seminar that is based on this book. The book is marketed to "beginners" who have rudimentary knowledge of statistics and calculus. This is NOT a book for what I would define a "beginner", especially if you have no experience with programming. It is difficult to follow as concepts are not introduced in a logical order, and one cannot follow along with the code in the chapters because there are so many mistakes in it. If you are truly a beginner, don't waste your time with this book, it will only frustrate you immensely.