The increase of geographical data availability at any scale and worldwide has not been fully coupled by an increase of knowledge to support decision. To better meet requirement of data analysis and modeling methods, XTBG invited Dr. Calum Brown from University of Edinburgh to present a workshop on spatial statistics and modeling in forest ecology on December 5-6. More than 50 young researchers and students from XTBG, Kunming Institute of Botany, and Yunnan University participated in the training.
   Dr. Calum Brown introduced methodological advances in spatial analysis and modeling in forest ecology. He taught the participants on how to conduct forest ecological studies by using spatial statistical methods, with a lot of case studies and spatial models. He also answered questions concerning spatial data analysis.
     Dr. Calum Brown’s expertise included statistics and ecology. He has cooperated with Dr. Lin Luxiang for three years. He will be a co-supervisor with Dr.. Lin Luxiang to guide master students of XTBG.
    During his stay in XTBG, Dr.Calum Brown also delivered a lecture entitled “Using spatial statistics to investigate ecological processes in tropical rainforests” XTBG Seminar.