Eric posted data-cloning MSSMs

A fair bit of Eric and my work over the past 6-months has involved using multivariate state-space models (MSSMs) to make inferences about population spatial structure. As part of this work, Eric worked on using data-cloning (Lele et al. 2007) for obtaining MLEs from MSSMs. Eric has posted for fitting MSSMs using data-cloning to FishBox.

Data-cloning MSSMs

This is "research" code, but should be useful to others trying to use data-cloning.

Brice has posted Bayesian MAR on FishBox

As part of our multi-pronged work on estimation methods for multivariate state-space models, Brice has posted a Bayesian version for fitting MARs to FishBox. This was motivated by a desire to put informative priors on the interaction matrix.

Bayesian MAR

ESA workshop on multivariate state-space models

On Sunday, Aug 10, Eric, Brice, Yasmin and myself are teaching a 1-day workshop on fitting multivariate state-space models (MSSMs) to data. This workshop uses a R routine that we wrote for fitting MSSM to multivariate time series data. A online version of the workshop will be posted after Sunday.

Kevin See joining the lab to work on spatial MARs

Kevin received a SeaGrant fellowship in Population Dynamics for his Ph.D. work starting in the fall. His proposal title was "Estimating population growth and interspecies interaction parameters with spatial replication" and will build on research on using MAR models to analyze fisheries monitoring data.

Brice leading reef survey in Monterey Bay

Next week, Brice leads a reef fish and invertebrate field survey as part of long-term monitoring program of Monterey Bay through REEF.org and National Marine Sanctuary Program.

Paper on CA sea lion population structure

Submitted to Journal of Applied Ecology, Applying multivariate-state-space models to detect spatial clustering of California sea lions in the Gulf of California, Mexico.
Chirakkal, Haridas; Ward, Eric; Gonzalez-Suarez, Manuela; Aurioles-Gamboa, David;
Holmes, Elizabeth; Gerber, Leah;

LAMBDA used in MAR-1 analysis of Lake Baikal data

Stephanie's paper using MAR-1 to analyze a 60-year time series of data from Lake Baikal just came out. It cites LAMBDA (the MAR-1) toolkit that Steve Viscido wrote (LAMBDA website).

• STEPHANIE E. HAMPTON, LYUBOV R. IZMEST'EVA, MARIANNE V. MOORE, STEPHEN L. KATZ, BRIAN DENNIS, EUGENE A. SILOW (2008) Sixty years of environmental change in the world's largest freshwater lake - Lake Baikal, Siberia Global Change article

The study was also covered in the New York Times: the article