Track: Workshop
Sam Levin
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity
Leipzig, Germany
Integral Projection Models (IPMs) have become an important tool for ecologists and demographers interested in a range of both theoretical and applied questions. Recent advances in stage-structured population theory have unlocked a wide array of possibilities, though computational tools to facilitate these analyses have not kept pace. ipmr is a new R package that aims to bridge this gap between theory and analyses. This package provides a flexible framework for implementing deterministic and stochastic, density-dependent and -independent IPMs. Additionally, ipmr is explicitly designed to handle complex lifecycles for which multiple continuous and/or discrete traits are needed to adequately capture population structure and project its dynamics. The goal of this workshop is to provide a gentle introduction to both theory and implementation of IPMs using ipmr with a variety of hands on exercises. Participants are encouraged to bring their own research questions and data, though multiple data sets will be available as well.