Dear Ecolog, I am currently co-supervising an Honors Wildlife Biology student who is mapping the prevalence and distribution of Chestnut Bleeding Canker disease on horse chestnut trees in Killarney National Park, Ireland. This is a relatively new field of ecology for me so I am interested in gleaming some advice from more experienced Listserve members. I would like for the student to use some form of statistical analysis to identify any relationships between the distribution of the disease and other factors such as habitat type, land use, visitor intensity, tree age etc. It occurred to me that Nearest Neighbor Analysis would inform us whether the distribution of the disease throughout the National Park is random or non-random. Could anybody, please, advise us on software which might be used to conduct such a nearest neighbour analysis given that the student has GPS locations for infected and uninfected trees in the National Park.
I appreciate any advice anybody has to offer, Kind Regards, Darren Reidy, M.Sc., B.Sc. Killarney National Park Education Centre, Knockreer House, Killarney, Co. Kerry, Ireland
