Beginner's Guide to Spatial, Temporal and Spatial-Temporal Ecological Data Analysis with R-INLA

In Chapter 2 we discuss an important topic: dependency. Ignoring this means that we have pseudoreplication. We present a series of examples and discuss how dependency can manifest itself. We briefly discuss frequentist tools that are available for the analysis of temporal and spatial data in Chapters 3 and 4, and we will conclude that their application is rather limited, especially if non-Gaussian distributions are required. We will therefore consider alternative models, but these require Bayesian techniques. In Chapter 5 we discuss linear mixed-effects models to analyse hierarchical (i.e. clustered or nested) data, and in Chapter 6 we outline how we add spatial and spatial-temporal dependency to regression models via spatial (and/or temporal) correlated random effects. In Chapter 7 we introduce Bayesian analysis, Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques (MCMC), and Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation (INLA). INLA allows us to apply models to spatial, temporal, or spatial-temporal data. In Chapters 8 through 16 we present a series of INLA examples. We start by applying linear regression and mixed-effects models in INLA (Chapters 8 and 9), followed by GLM examples in Chapter 10. In Chapters 11 through 13 we show how to apply GLM models on spatial data. In Chapter 14 we discuss time-series techniques and how to implement them in INLA. Finally, in Chapters 15 and 16 we analyse spatial-temporal models in INLA.