Dale & Fortin – the revised guide to spatial analysis

What the paper shows and why it matters

(AI-generated)

Since its first edition in 2005, “Spatial Analysis – A Guide for Ecologists” by Fortin and Dale has served spatial ecologists as a reference text. Spatial statistics has moved on since then: with more computing power and new numerical methods, the field has shifted from testing data against null models or spatial homogeneity towards fitting explicit, often hierarchical spatial models, with a larger role for Bayesian inference and simulation. The review assesses the book’s second edition against the authors’ stated aim of more breadth and against these developments.

The review finds the second edition an improved and modernised version of an excellent reference, but not a broader one. The layout is more readable, the text has gained new material and more recent references, and the book still covers data types and sampling design, point patterns, continuous spatial patterns, spatial clustering and spatio-temporal data. The methodological scope, however, has hardly changed: the authors comment on hierarchical models and Bayesian inference in their final chapter, but the book does not treat them in depth. A restructuring that nearly doubles the number of chapters partly obscures this, and in the review’s view the simpler structure of the first edition supported the storyline better.

The review sees no current alternative to the book for a theoretically solid yet accessible overview of classic spatial methods in ecology. It notes that the book remains rather theoretical, with little on practical and computational issues or case studies, and suggests that a chapter on Bayesian inference and hierarchical models, and a more applied focus such as a website with code, would have made it more useful for self-study. It points readers to complementary texts for a gentler introduction, for practical implementation, for point patterns and for hierarchical Bayesian modelling.