Research Priorities

• Statistical inference - how do we estimate location, scale and shape in distributions with heavy tails?
• Marine ecology - how do we estimate animal movements using information contained in family trees?

Researchers

• Chief Investigator: Phil Pollett
• Research Fellow: Ross McVinish
• PhD student: Robert Cope
• MPhil student: Nimmy Thaliath
• Honours student: Trent Spears

Collaborating Researchers

• Dr Olena Kravchuk, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, University of Adelaide
• Dr Janet Lanyon, School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland
• Dr Jennifer Seddon, School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland

Selected Research Projects

• Estimating Location, Scale and Shape in Long-tailed Distributions

  Project leader: Phil Pollett (UQ)
  Researchers: Olena Kravchuk (University of Adelaide)

  We have drawn on the relationship between the Cauchy distribution and the hyperbolic secant distribution to prove that the Maximum likelihood estimator of the scale parameter of the Cauchy distribution is log-normally distributed and to study the properties of a Hodges-Lehmann type estimator for the scale parameter. We have shown that the scale estimator is slightly biased, but performs well even on small samples independently of the location parameter.

  Research outputs

  • Kravchuk, O.Y. and P.K. Pollett (2011) Hodges-Lehmann scale estimator for Cauchy distribution. Communications in Statistics - Theory and Methods (In press: accepted 10/02/2011).
• Animal Movement Between Populations Deduced from Family Trees

  Project leader: Phil Pollett (UQ)
  Researchers: Robert Cope (UQ), Janet Lanyon (UQ) and Jennifer Seddon (UQ)

  We have develop new methods for estimating animal movements using information contained in family trees. Movement estimates are essential to population models that assist natural resource managers to plan species recovery and to predict the effect of future challenges, such as human-mediated activities and climate change. We have evaluated several methods for constructing family trees from genetic data and developed a statistic that describes animal movement between populations which is based on the families whose members were sampled in more than one population; empirical data has been sourced from a long-term mark-recapture study of dugongs in Moreton Bay, and new samples from two adjacent populations.

  Research outputs

  • Cope, R.C., Lanyon, J.M., Seddon, J.R. and P.K. Pollett (2011) Reconstructing family trees for free-ranging dugongs in southern Queensland, Australia. 19th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals, Tampa, Florida, USA, 27 November-2 December 2011 (poster).

Awards and Achievements

• PhD student Robert Cope won the 2011 Frederic Fairfield Memorial Award (Society for Marine Mammalogy). This award is made to a student who presents at the Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals for conducting the most innovative research in the field of marine mammal biology. It recognizes and supports scientists who have developed or applied pioneering techniques or research tools to study marine mammals.
• Honours student Trent Spears was awarded one of two UQ School of Mathematics and Physics Outstanding Tutor Awards for 2011.