Time to event analysis (Survival analysis) in ecology

The August Eco-Stats Lab (Friday 28th, 2pm, Bioscience level 6) will be on time to event analysis in ecology.

When modelling the time taken for an event to happen (e.g.death) we often use time to event analysis (survival analysis) rather than regression models. A common feature of these data is that for some subjects the even did not happen at all during the study period, called (right) censoring, and survival analysis can elegantly incorporate the information from these subjects. Regression models on the other hand have no easy way to include these subjects.

Survival analysis can often be applied to ecological data, e.g.

- Arrival of a parasite

- Survival times for animals/plants 

- Germination timing

- Response to stimulus

- How long fruit remain on plants before they are eaten

We will use the survival package in R to analyse some ecological time to event data.  You can find the code/explanation here, and the data here.