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Aho lab

Office: LS 419, Phone: (208)-282-3391, email: ahoken@isu.edu

Alpine ecology

Figs. Alpine study sites in the Absaroka-Beartooth mountains. (L to R) E. face of Cutoff Pk., looking NW from the summit of the Thunderer, looking NW from the summit of Mineral Pk., and looking S from the summit plateau of Amphitheatre Pk (photos: S. Contor, 2008-2009).

Much of my research of the last 15 years (as a graduate student and faculty member) has concerned alpine ecology. This includes the use of classic methods in plant synecology and autecology, and the examination of the effect of invasive mountain goats (Oreomnos americanus) on the alpine vegetation of Absaroka-Beartooth mountains.
                                                                                                    

White bark pine endophytic ecology

Figs (right). Whitebark pine study sites in the mountains of South-Central Oregon. (L to R) Parent trees representing a specific type of genetic vulnerability to blister rust infection, view of Crater Lake from Watchman's Peak along the caldera rim (photos: E. Moler, 2013).

A number of undergraduate researchers (Connor Newman, Certhomas Tan, Jillian Buttici, Aaron Harnsberger, Courtney Dial) are currently helping Dr. Scot Kelchner and I in establishing procedures to extract fungal DNA from the interior of five needle pines. The group members has been given the name PEEPs --for Pine Endophyte Education Project(s). The figure below shows Certhomas Tan and Connor Newman at the top Bonneville Peak near Pocatello, ID, collecting limber pine (P. flexilis) needles (photo: K. Aho).

 

The R computational environment

R is a computer language and an open source environment for statistics, data management, computation and graphics.  Documentation and software can be downloaded for free here. 


asbio-devel

Asbio (applied statistics for biologists) is an R package that contains functions for statistical pedagogy and biological research. Of particular interest are hundreds of graphical functions for depicting statistical concepts, many with interactive GUIs.  Asbio also serves as a software companion to a biostatistical textbook I am completing: "Foundational and Applied Statistics for Biologists Using R".  Developmental versions of the software for Windows and Unix/Linux can be found in the table below.  Bolded versions are available at the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN).  I generally clean out versions older than the newest CRAN release since CRAN archives these.

Releases

   Windows  Linux/Unix-alike  Macintosh  Release date
 asbio 1.0-5
 asbio 1.0-5.zip
 asbio 1.0-5.tar
asbio 1.0-5.tgz  5/13/2014
 

Zipped or tarballed folders can be unzipped directly into an R "library" folder (in my computer this is currently located in C:/Program Files/R/R-2.15.2/library), or a personal user R-library folder (i.e., C:/Program Files(x86)/R/R-2.15.2/library). Note that asbio >= 0.3-43 requires R >= 2.15.1.  Note also that asbio requires tcltk, and imports functions from the packages  plotrix, mvtnorm, deSolve, scatterplot3d, pixmap, tkrplot, plotrix, and lattice.  These packages can be found at CRAN, and all come with a download of asbio from CRAN.  Packages can also be installed during an R-session using pulldown menus (non-Linux only) or with  install.packages().  

plant.ecol-devel

This is a stripped down package containing functions for plant community ecology. It is only available at this website.  It requires plotrix, mvtnorm, and vegan.

     
Releases

   Windows  Linux/Unix-alike  Macintosh  Release date
plant.ecol 0.3   plant.ecol 0.3.zip  plant.ecol 0.3.tar  NA 10/17/13



Biostatistical consulting

Some of my recent biostatistical consulting work can be found below.