Chapter 1 Flashcards
physical biology
meant to be blending of math and biology
theory
the act of trying to describe or derive general principles in ecology. unifying rules that help explain ecological complexity
modeling
building a mathematical descriptor of some system in order to explain or predict an aspect of that system
mathematical/computational model
abstract model that uses mathematical language to describe the behavior of a system
often formulated using ODEs or PDEs
statistical model
attempts to describe relationship between observed quantities and independent variables
linear models, GAMMs
reasons for a mathematical model
understanding nature and how something changes over time
making predictions about something that is going to happen in the future
why use statistics
to confirm effects, estimate parameters, and predict outcomes
three rules of statistics
confirmation
estimation
prediction
example of confirmation
at low latitudes, there are larger numbers of species than at higher latitudes
example of estimation
there are 4x higher the number of species at latitude 0 than latitude 48
example of prediction
there will be 80 unique species of mammal at latitude 26
hierarchy (most to least accurate)
position along a common scale positions along non aligned scales length, direction, angle area volume, curvature shading, color saturation
pie chart
isn’t great for displaying data
dual axes graphs (issues)
scales can have a big impact on the viewer
they imply a casual relationship
often hideous
histograms
plot of a single continuous variable divided up into bins
show the number of individuals that were recorded in each bin
