Clustering and Classification methods for Biologists


MMU logo

Additional Resources

LTSN Bioscience logo

Page Outline

 

Search

[ Yahoo! ] options

Background

These are an eclectic mix of web resources that I have found either generally useful, or of particular value with respect to the contents of these pages. Please feel free to suggest others by email or by leaving a comment

top

Statistical

  1. The makers of STATISTICA (a commercial software package) have a very useful set of notes about many statistical methods, including some that are only briefly covered in this course.
  2. PopTools is a very versatile Excel addin from CSIRO. In addition to Mantel tests it also incorporates a range of Matrix methods and resampling techniques.
  3. PAST is a free data analysis package which, although aimed at paleontologists, has great potential for ecological analyses. In addition to many other techniques PAST can be used for Regression: Linear (Standard and Reduced Major Axis), lin-log (exponential), log-log (allometric), logistic; Diversity statistics, rarefaction. Dice, Jaccard and Raup-Crick similarity indices; Principal Components (with Minimal Spanning Tree), Principal Coordinates, Correspondence analysis with detrending, Cluster analysis (three algorithms, nine distance measures); Discriminant analysis; Time series and Spectral analysis; Directional statistics, rose plots, point distribution statistics
  4. The R package is a public domain (i.e. free) 'clone' of the very powerful S-Plus package. Although it is very powerful it is not for the faint-hearted! Using it belies its Unix heritage. If you wish to find a version for the Mac or PC follow the download link and choose the nearest site. Note this is a completely different R statistics package to that distributed from Pierre Legendre's site!
  5. Bill Miller has been developing a comprehensive and free statistics package call Openstat that offers a number of multivariate analyses including multiple regression, discriminant analysis cluster analysis, principal components (factor) analysis and logistic regression.

top


Software utilities

  1. Notepad++ is an excellent free source code editor (and Notepad replacement) which supports several programming languages running under the MS Windows environment. I used it to write most of the web pages. It can be downloaded from http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
  2. The free Firefox browser is a joy to use.
  3. SmartFTP is a simple an powerful FTP tool. It is free for single use and educational purposes.
  4. Yahoo! Geocities is the home for these pages. This site allows you to set up free web pages (15 Mb limit)
  5. HOT POTATOES is a very useful tool from Half-Baked software for the creation of online questions. Several of the self-assessments in these pages were created using this tool.

top


Other software

  1. Although I haven't used it with these pages Multispec is a very useful freeware Multispectral Image Data Analysis System
  2. Again, I didn't use it with these pages but LandSerf is a freely available Geographical Information System (GIS) for the visualisation and analysis of surfaces

top


Web pages

The first two are related to my research interests and I am directly involved in both projects.

  1. The Irish golden eagle reintroduction project
  2. Highland Renewal is a Scottish charity which manages a small estate on the SW tip of the island of Mull for conservation purposes.
  3. Chance News comes out as an online resource several times a year. It is a 'sideways' look at the use of statistics in society and the media. There are always articles that are relevant to biologists.

  4. Finally there is the wonderful BBC site. I am listening to an England football match streamed from this site as I type. If you are involved in web authoring it is well worth looking at their disability pages.

top