This one-week course will illustrate how adopting a consumer-resource approach can change our understanding of interactions, and how adaptive processes can be important in understanding both academic and applied problems in ecology. This edition of the course will focus on consumer-resource interactions in times of global environmental change at three levels of integration: the individual-population level, the community-ecosystem level and the socio-ecological level.

The purpose of this course is to familiarize participants with statistical methods to analyse uncertainty propagation in spatial modelling, such that they can apply these methods to their own models and data. Both attribute and positional errors are considered. Attention is also given to the effects of spatial auto- and cross-correlations on the results of an uncertainty propagation analysis. Computer practicals make use of the R language for statistical computing.

This is a refresher course. The level is that of a second course in Statistics. We will refresh basic knowledge of Probability, Statistical Inference (Estimation and Testing), t-tests, simple cases of Regression and ANOVA, Experimental Design, Nonparametric Tests, and Chi-square Tests. Some time is reserved to discuss statistical problems of the participants.

The design and analysis of experiments, using plants, animals, or humans, are an important part of the scientific process. Proper design of an experiment, apart from its proper analysis and interpretation, is important to convince a researcher that your results are valid and that your conclusions are meaningful.

For PhD candidates planning, control, monitoring and management of their research project and time are essential in accomplishing the PhD. Achieving this in 4 years’ time is a real challenge. To manage the research projects better and to get more out of time is what this course is all about. This 3-day short course provides insight into project and time management and ways to improve them. Hence it is time well spent. NOTE: This course will be offered at the University of Amsterdam. PhD candidates of Wageningen University are advised to take this course in Wageningen under the umbrella of WGS, as this offers them the reduced course fee that is not applicable for this course in Amsterdam.

How can we fully exploit the multifunctional potential of soils? And how is the soil’s functionality impacted by land-use intensification and climate change? This is the theme for the 7th edition of the international PhD course on Soil Ecology.

GIS is commonly used as a tool to deal with spatial information. Although GIS packages are becoming increasingly user-friendly, the conceptual model behind the storage, analysis, and display is still essential to properly deal with these systems. This course aims to give an overview of this conceptual model, after which it will go in-depth in the use of ArcGIS using a number of practical cases.

The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to R, a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. Focus of the course will be on getting familiar with the R environment, to use R for manipulation and exploration of data, and to perform simple statistical analyses. Hands-on exercises will form a large part of the workshop.

Ecological modelling, based on field data, has become an indispensable tool in ecological research. This course presents a conceptual framework for ecological modelling: covering elementary growth models and probability distributions needed to mathematically model processes.

This course we will provide an overview of concepts and tools that can contribute to the design of multifunctional landscapes that are better suited to capitalize on ecosystem services in conjunction with other land-use functions. The focus of the course will be on consumer-resource interactions underlying pollination and biocontrol services, the spatial ecology of pollinators and natural enemies, the impact of pest management practices on arthropod-mediated ecosystem services, and the design of multifunctional landscapes that support arthropod-mediated ecosystem services as well as other land-use functions.

The course is mainly based on the book "Multivariate Analysis of Ecological Data Using CANOCO 5" by Petr Smilauer and Jan Leps (2014). Practical exercises, the use of Canoco for Windows (4.5) and GenStat for Windows and interpretation of the output are important elements of the course.

Modelling is a crucial part of today's science. Among other things, models are used for assessing sensitivity of systems to disturbances or changes in external factors, and for predictions of future system states. This course provides an introduction to modelling with a focus on systems analysis using dynamic simulation models.

From 20 - 24 May 2019, ISRIC - World Soil Information will organise a Spring School on digital soil mapping, classification and assessment for soil and environmental scientists, students, soil experts and professionals in natural resources management. The spring school will take place at the Wageningen Campus in the Netherlands and will consist of two five-day courses that are run in parallel.

This course introduces methods and software for management, analysis and mapping of soil type and soil properties within the R environment for statistical computing. After this course participants will be able to apply the methods learnt to their own datasets.