Ecosystems: modeling and quantification

The aim is to master the modeling and statistical analysis of ecosystem data. Students should be able to model complex systems (e.g. plants in a cultivated ecosystem, population dynamics, lake ecosystems). They will also need to know what type of statistical model to use to process ecological data, and how to interpret it.

Introduction to mathematical modeling with applications in ecology - Lake ecosystem modeling - Random models in population dynamics - Linear models (linear regression, Anova, Ancova) - Statistical testing power - Mixed models - Generalized linear models.

Modeling: common analysis and algebra tools (Taylor expansion, Jacobian matrix of an application, eigenvalues of a matrix, diagonalizing a matrix, etc.). Statistics: notion of statistical test, comparison of two averages, linear model if possible.

100% continuous assessment