The International Statistical Ecology Conference (or “ISEC” as it is more commonly known) is the global gathering of those working on the latest quantitative methods to solve key problems in ecology. The conference is held every two years in a different place around the world; this year it was in the UK, being hosted by Swansea University in Wales from 15th-19th July 2024.

A team of staff and PhD students from BioSS’s Ecology and Environmental Science, Statistical Methodology, and Offshore Renewables groups travelled down to Swansea for a week of scientific discussions and presentations. Before the week even began, some of the team arrived early to participate in workshops. These focussed workshops allowed some dedicated time to learn, explore and discuss new methodological developments on a particular topic (including “Joint species distribution modelling” and “Using GAMs for analysing movement data”), with the opportunity to share code and work with those directly developing new software.

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The week itself consisted of a mixture of invited “big-picture” plenary talks, themed scientific talk sessions, poster discussion sessions, and round-table discussion sessions (with interactive discussions on “pipelines for integrated distribution models”, and “teaching statistics for undergraduate ecologists”). The team from BioSS divided up into attending a variety of themed talk sessions, on key topics from “Artificial intelligence” to “Population modelling”, “Data integration”, and “Habitat selection and space use”. The conference also provided excellent opportunities to reconnect with previous and current collaborators, and make new connections within the scientific community.

In total, BioSS staff and PhD students led 11 different presentations during the conference, including 9 talks and 2 posters:

• Adam Butler – “Expert elicitation on the effectiveness of potential measures to compensate for impacts of offshore renewables”
• Ana Couto – “Data fusion models for combining sparse data at different scales”
• Ana Couto – “Using telemetry data for estimating animal resource selection: a comparison of different statistical approaches”
• Anastasia Frantsuzova – “Gaussian process emulation for an individual-based model simulation of offshore wind development impact on breeding seabirds”
• David L Miller – “Accumulative effects in generalised additive models: an example with aphids”
• Eloise Bray – “Developing statistical inference methods for animal movement modelling”
• Esther Jones – “Attributing space use at-sea for guillemot and razorbill in winter using geolocator tracking data”
• Katherine Whyte – “Using movement modelling to understand predator-prey interactions at multiple scales”
• Ken Newman – “Stopping rule sampling to monitor and protect endangered species”
• Rebecca Akeresola – “Assessing the impact of temporal resolution on animal behavioural inference”
• Thomas Cornulier – “Lagging behind and sideways: estimating the spatial and temporal zone of influence of environmental predictors on ecological processes”

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The work presented by BioSS covered both research and consultancy from previous and current projects, including work with RESAS, the UKCEH-BioSS Methodological Development Framework, and projects from the Offshore Renewables Group.

Overall, the team had a successful and productive week in Swansea, and are looking forward to taking the connections, lessons learned, and enthusiasm for tackling challenges in statistical ecology back with them as they return to the office.

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Some of the BioSS team at ISEC 2024.