RcourseIdaho2017

Materials for Fisheries Population Dynamics in R workshop in Idaho on 15-Nov-17

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Course Description

This one-day course is for students interested in expanding their R skills to estimate basic population dynamic rate parameters. Through a sequence of short lectures, code demonstrations, and hands-on application exercises, participants will use R to construct and apply an age-length key to estimate ages of individual fish from their lengths, estimate mortality rates and compare rates among groups, fit a von Bertalanffy growth function (VBGF) and compare function parameters among groups, and fit several stock-recruitment functions. Depending on time, participants may also fit weight-length relationships and compare parameters among groups. Participants should be familiar with the fundamentals of R. See the workshop announcement.


Pre-Course Preparation

  • Install at least version 3.4.0 of R on your laptop. Directions for a first install are here for Windows or here for MacOS. If you are using Windows and already have R installed, then here is an easy method to upgrade. [The MacOS installation directions may be dated. Simply following the installation defaults should be fine.]
  • I use RStudio to interact with R (but RStudio is not required for this course). Directions to install and prepare RStudio are here for Windows and here for MacOS. [The MacOS installation directions may be dated. Simply following the installation defaults should be fine.]
  • Install the FSA, FSAdata, AICcmodavg, dplyr, magrittr, minpack.lm, and nlstools packages. Directions for installing packages are here if you plan to use RStudio and here for Windows and here for MacOS if you plan to use R directly. Test your package installations by seeing if this script runs without error.
  • Download the slides, R scripts, and data for the course (available below).
  • The materials for this workshop are based on my Introduction to Fisheries Analysis with R book (IFAR). This book is NOT required for the workshop. However, the book is available at a 20% discount for participants in this workshop. Contact me if you would like details about how to receive this discount.
  • You may want to (re)familiarize yourself with R basics (IFAR Chapters 1-3), age-length keys (IFAR Chapter 5), estimating mortality rates (IFAR chapter 11), von Bertalanffy growth functions (IFAR Chapter 12), stock-recruitment functions (IFAR Chapter 13), and weight-length relationships (IFAR Chapter 7).

Course Materials


Post-Course Follow-up

  • Please complete this survey regarding this short course.
  • If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.