Workshops
If you have registered, please select a workshop below, enter your name/email in the relevant input boxes and click on the 'Submit' button.Workshop Details
Qualitative Risk Assessment for Wildlife Disease ControlThis will be a practical workshop where participants will be invited to comment on a risk assessment document for the introduction of pathogens with potential to establish in UK wildlife species. A published UK non-native organism risk assessment scheme was used to produce an initial analysis. The responses provided during the workshop will form the basis of a discussion session on the use of qualitative risk assessments, including addressing the challenges faced by classifying uncertainties and summarising risk.
Population Modelling and Quantitative Risk AssessmentPopulation modelling and quantitative risk assessment are becoming much more popular, and are often being used to inform policy, either locally or nationally. If management decisions are to rely on modelling, then it is important to know that the approaches used are suitable and not subject to bias. This workshop is for modellers and non-modellers who want to understand the process of model construction and reporting. We will draw from examples in wildlife disease and other areas to discuss: model formulation, construction, verification, validation and sensitivity analysis. We will also cover model results and how to report and interpret them. We hope that experienced modellers will also attend to enrich the discussions. The outcome should be a greater understanding of which types of models should be used where, how they should be interrogated and interpreted, and a check-list of common problems.
Statistics for Wildlife BiologistsGeneralized Linear Modelling (GLM) is commonly used to model wildlife populations by estimating and comparing the effect of one or more factors on a response which is not normally distributed and might be assessed on, for example, a multiplicative scale (i.e. additive on log). This workshop will give an overview of these models and of their use. Further, two types of extensions of GLM will be briefly introduced: 1) Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMM) where the models account for the presence of two random terms (terms for which inference about the specific values may not be of interest but for which questions about the variability of the population can be answered, e.g. between and within site variation) and 2) Generalized Additive Models (GAM) where unspecific (non-parametric) functions of the predictor variables are used.
Practical ParasitologyThe Veterinary Surveillance Team (VST) at CSL carries out a broad range of research and surveillance projects, from modelling anthelmintic resistance in sheep, to monitoring and investigating diseases of wildlife within the new parasitology diagnostic laboratory facility at CSL. As well as supporting standard laboratory diagnostic procedures, a range of student projects have also been conducted, including studies for parasites in fox and mink. This will be a practical afternoon laboratory session looking at methods of parasite identification, with examples from the range of projects carried out by the team.
The new edition of Veterinary Parasitology, co-written by the Head of the VST, Professor Mike Taylor will also be available at the workshop!
Practical Radio-trackingThe dynamics of wildlife diseases and the success of subsequent management interventions may be profoundly affected by host behaviour. This workshop will demonstrate the valuable information that can be gained from radio-tracking individuals and explores important analytical techniques and their inherent assumptions. Topics to be covered include social interactions, dispersal and invasions, measuring resource use and quantifying control.
Subject to numbers, the workshop may include practical demonstration of the latest Ranges software as a tool for analysing home range and interaction data.