Acknowledgments

Lots of people have helped me start and finish this book. I would like to thank:

The R community, for building such a useful tool.

Various research institutions that have provided me room to work over the years: the Department of Zoology at the University of Florida, the Mathematical Biosciences Institute, and the NERC Centre for Population Biology at Silwood Park.

All the students and colleagues who have brought me such interesting and challenging problems over the years, especially those who took the time to find errors or make suggestions: Jorge Ahumada, Chad Brassil, David Buck, Lin Cassidy, Lew Coggins, Rick Condit, Mick Crawley, Ian Dworkin, Ian Fiske, Shane Geange, Gregor Gorjanc, Tom Hobbs, Rico Holdo, Holly Kindsvater, Aaron MacNeil, Julien Martin, Mike McCoy, Jeremy Mendoza, Jess Metcalf, Toshinori Okuyama, Alfredo Rios, Stuart Sandin, Nat Seavy, Darren Shaw, Hank Stevens, Adrian Stier, Don Strong, Maria Uriarte, Denis Valle, Will Wilson, and several anonymous reviewers. I apologize if I forgot your name, or if your suggestions slipped through the cracks or were just too hard to implement.

For finding errors in the first printing: Ian Carroll, Jeanne DeNoyer, Aaron Ellison, Jack Finn, Nicole Gottdanker, Barney Luttbeg, Duncan Menge, Mike Meredith, Fernando Miguez, John Poulsen, Martin Schlather, Gavin Simpson, Fernando Taboada, Francois Teste, Eric Walters, and Will White.

Researchers who generously contributed their original data sets as examples: James D. Thomson, Russ Schmitt and Sally Holbrook, Mike Dodd and Jonathan Silvertown, James Vonesh, and Jackie Wilson.

My Ph.D. and postdoctoral advisers, Bryan Grenfell and Steve Pacala, for introducing me to mathematical and statistical ecology.

My parents, Joan and Ethan Bolker, for thorough and thoughtful comments on the manuscript and for establishing the expectation that writing books is just what people do.

And last but not least Aidan and especially Tara for their love, patience, and support.

Essentially, all models are wrong
but some are useful.

—George Box