Tuesday, March 9, 2021 - 1:00 pm CANTON -- Matt Higham, St. Lawrence University professor of statistics, will present Statistical Challenges With Ecological Data or Ecological Challenges to Statistical Models? at the next Clarkson University Science Café at 7:15 p.m. on Wednesday, March 10. Have you ever read a paper where the statistical analysis seemed far too simple to capture the complexities of the considered underlying system? Alternatively, have you read a manuscript where the statistical methods used appeared unnecessarily complex? Higham will discuss the balance of statistical model complexity and illuminate some of the challenges in modeling ecological data. Specifically, the discussion will investigate how modeling spatial correlation, temporal correlation and imperfect detection of animals contributes to varying conclusions about (1) associations between environmental covariates and moose abundance in a region of Alaska and (2) predictions of total moose abundance in the region.