School of Mathematics and Statistics Home | About the school | Contact | Courses | Research | Personnel list

Research Applied Mathematics Pure Mathematics Statistics Statistics Research Unit for Wildlife Population Assessment (RUWPA) Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling (CREEM) Statistical Inference MSc in Applied Statistics and Datamining

Research Unit for Wildlife Population Assessment Visit the group website Statistical ecology has a strong tradition at the University of St Andrews , formerly through the Statistics Department under the leadership of Prof. Richard Cormack, and now through the Statistics Division of the School of Mathematics and Statistics . Background RUWPA is a contract-funded research group specializing in the development of new statistical methods and innovative applications of existing methods. We have expertise and experience in most aspects of wildlife assessment and survey design. Ongoing research is being conducted in the following topics: Distance sampling methods Mark-recapture methods Spatial and spatio-temporal modelling Generalized Additive Models for wildlife population assessment Markov Chain Monte-Carlo methods for wildlife population assessment Automated survey design Integrating sample data and population dynamics models Stage-structured population modelling Model selection Adaptive sampling Database and Distance sampling estimation software development Trend analysis History RUWPA's predecessor, the Wildlife Population Assessment Research Group (WPARG), was established at St. Andrews University in 1993, when Stephen T. Buckland was appointed professor of statistics. By 1995, activities had expanded to the point that restructuring was necessary. WPARG spawned RUWPA, headed by David L. Borchers, which now forms the largest research group within the Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling (CREEM). CREEM was established in 1999, linking the schools of Mathematical and Statistics, Biology, and Geography and Geosciences.