Community Ecology Analytical Methods Using R and Excel [Paperback]

Following an intuitive thread from data entry through to analysis and interpretation, this is intended as a comprehensive course in the main methods of community analysis, both traditional and current. The intimidating length can largely be attributed to the numerous worked examples with full output. Some techniques are demonstrated in both Excel and R, which seems superfluous, since the latter is almost invariably superior. I would have liked more on GREP, an invaluable tool for checking and formatting data, and a notable weakness of Excel. Overall this is a useful resource for postgraduate students, but it could have been more concise and selective.

I find his style easy-going and he does well at not assuming the reader has expert knowledge. The book follows a logical path and is packed with reassuring screen shots and coding advice. The fact that it is written by an ecologist makes the data relevant to biologists and it all seems easy to follow, specimen data are again provided on the website. Gardener offers alternative analyses for each type of data, explains clearly when he thinks a particular analysis is most useful and then encourages the reader to ???have a go???.Interactions between species are of fundamental importance to all living systems and the framework we have for studying these interactions is community ecology. This is important to our understanding of the planets biological diversity and how species interactions relate to the functioning of ecosystems at all scales. Species do not live in isolation and the study of community ecology is of practical application in a wide range of conservation issues. The study of ecological community data involves many methods of analysis. In this book you will learn many of the mainstays of community analysis including: diversity, similarity and cluster analysis, ordination and multivariate analyses. This book is for undergraduate and postgraduate students and researcherl3,