Covariates

Incorporate environmental and survey data into your analysis

Enhance your estimate of detectability, and assess what influences the density of your species of conservation concern

Table of contents

Learning objectives

What you will learn in this module

By the end of this module you will be able to do the following

Measurement scales

Data are measured using quantitative and qualitative scales

Knowing what scale your data use helps you to manipulate and analyse your data effectively

Covariates & coefficients

What environmental or survey variables should you record?

Including covariates in your analysis allows you to estimate detectability and density more accurately

Import covariates

Import your covariate data into R

Add your covariate data to your distance sampling project and take a look at them

Prepare covariates

Combine covariates with detections to prepare for a full analysis

Assess whether your continuous covariates need to be scaled or standardised to increase the efficiency of parameter estimation

Compare covariate models

Test our hypotheses on the factors which affect density

Construct code to determine which model has the best support from our field observations

Interpret coefficients

What ecological story do our models tell us?

Examine the ecological patterns by interpreting the coefficient estimates from our best models

Assignment

Demonstrate your learning and earn a badge!

Submit work that showcases your new skills and a reflection on what you’re learning, plus feedback to others

Summary and reflection

A brief review of this module

Take a minute to reflect on what you’ve just learnt