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| Introduction |
| Rationale for the course: |
Ecologists seek to find general patterns that will explain results across different taxa or different environments. Yet, each individual study can deal with only one or a few species and conditions. Therefore, some form of quantitative combination of results of independent experiments is necessary to draw general conclusions. The importance of research synthesis in ecology is particularly high currently because of the growing pressure on ecologists to provide accurate quantitative assessments, predictions and practical solutions for pressing environmental issues (e.g. biodiversity losses, global climate changes). |
Traditionally, reviewing of research in ecology has been done either in the form of narrative reviews or by “vote counting” where the number of statistically significant results for and against a hypothesis are counted. Both methods are clearly inadequate for the current needs because narrative reviewing is inherently subjective and has a limited power to reveal sources of variation among studies whereas vote counting has very poor properties as a statistical procedure. |
A new generation of statistical methods of research synthesis were first introduced into ecology 20 years ago. These methods, known collectively as meta-analysis, were originally developed in the social sciences and medicine in the late 1970s, and provide a powerful, informative and objective set of tools for summarizing the results of studies on the same topic. Meta-analyses generally work by transforming the outcome of each study into a “common currency”, a standardized measure of the sign and magnitude of an effect of interest in each study. |
These effect size measures can then be combined across studies to estimate whether the overall effect differs significantly from zero, and can be compared among groups to determine the relative contribution of different factors to the outcome of the study. Despite its great potential in addressing both basic and applied research questions, the progress in meta-analytic applications in ecology is still hindered by the fact that training in meta-analytic techniques is seldom included into the syllabuses of standard statistical courses and therefore is not readily available to ecology students. This course aims at filling this gap. |
| Aims of the course: |
This course aims to promote and facilitate the thoughtful and critical use of meta-analysis for research synthesis in ecology by: |
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| Learning outcome of the course: |
After successfully completing this course students should be able to: |
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