Advanced Population Modeling for Management of Living Natural Resources

Instruction, demonstration and exercises in advanced statistical methods for  estimation of population models for management of living natural resources. Principles of  statistical inference and process-based model building recognizing uncertainty will be outlined. A  wide range of population assessment methods will be developed through statistical programming  and applied to fisheries and marine mammal data sets to fit complex nonlinear models by estimating values for parameters and associated uncertainty. State of the art programming software for implementing these models, including Template Model Builder and STAN will be used for  class labs and assignments for both maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimation. The course is  designed to train students to “have the ability to conduct high-quality scientific research in stock  assessment, fishery population dynamics and related fields” (U.S. Dept. Commerce and U.S. Dept.  Education 2008 NOAA Tech. Mem. NMFS-F/SPO-91).