Regional-scale patterns of habitat preference for the seahorse Hippocampus reidi in the tropical estuarine environment

Designed for one/two-semester, junior/graduate-level courses in Biostatistics, Biometry, Quantitative Biology, or Statistics, the latest edition of this best-selling biostatistics text is both comprehensive and easy to read. It provides a broad and practical overview of the statistical analysis methods used by researchers to collect, summarize, analyze, and draw conclusions from biological research data. The Fourth Edition can serve as either an introduction to the discipline for beginning students or a comprehensive procedural reference for today's practitioners.

How should ecologists and evolutionary biologists analyze nonnormal data that involve random effects? Nonnormal data such as counts or proportions often defy classical statistical procedures. Generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) provide a more flexible approach for analyzing nonnormal data when random effects are present. The explosion of research on GLMMs in the last decade has generated considerable uncertainty for practitioners in ecology and evolution. Despite the availability of accurate techniques for estimating GLMM parameters in simple cases, complex GLMMs are challenging to fit and statistical inference such as hypothesis testing remains difficult. We review the use (and misuse) of GLMMs in ecology and evolution, discuss estimation and inference and summarize 'best-practice' data analysis procedures for scientists facing this challenge.