McMASTER UNIVERSITY STATISTICS SEMINAR

Week of October 5 - 9, 1998

SPEAKER:	Ms. Joanna Biernacka Department of Preventive Medicine & Biostatistics, University of Toronto
TITLE:	"Tracking Trout: A Cutthroat Analysis"
DAY:	Wednesday, October 7, 1998
TIME:	3:30 p.m. [Coffee in BSB-202 at 3:00 p.m.]
PLACE:	BSB-108

SUMMARY

Rainbow, brook, brown and cutthroat trout are all trout species well represented in the rivers and creeks of North America. This talk concentrates on the statistical analysis of cutthroat trout data from Dutch Creek, Alberta. Collected in the fall of 1995 and winter of 1996, the data pertain to the tracking of fish movement (27 trout with implanted radio transmitters) and habitat availability. Using a variety of statistical methods, including graphical procedures, contingency tables, regression and Markov chains, we compare fish behaviour across seasons, characterise the creek, identify fish preferences and describe fish movement, among other issues.The talk is based on the McMaster Team contribution to one of the Case Studies discussed at the 1998 Annual Meeting of the Statistical Society of Canada, Sherbrooke, Quebec, 1-4 June 1998.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Ms. Joanna Biernacka is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics at The University of Toronto. She obtained a B.Sc. degree in Honours Biology and Mathematics and a M.Sc. degree in Statistics, both from McMaster University. Both her Master and Ph.D. studies have been supported by NSERC through postgraduate scholarships. Ms. Biernacka's Ph.D. studies are on the area of Genetic Statistics, specifically they focus on the evaluation of existing methods and the development and application of new statistical techniques for analysing data from genetic studies, particularly those pertaining to human genetic diseases.

REFERENCES

The following article has been provided by Ms. Biernacka to be used as background for her talk. It is on reserve at Thode Library (STATS 770: Statistics Seminar).

[1] Brown, R.S. & Mackay, W.C. (1995), "Fall and Winter Movements of and Habitat Use by Cutthroat Trout in the Ram River, Alberta," TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY 124, pp. 873-885.