Cause, mechanism and prediction in ecology

This is a theme that bugged me for the past few months, through reading (Peters' critique for ecology, Shipley's path analysis book), meetings and discussions (IK computation ecology). So it is time to actually sit down, think this through and organize my thoughts. What better way to achieve this than to write a post? What …

Simulating SEMs for piecewiseSEM: part 1 the basics

Structural Equation Models are being used more and more frequently by ecologists due to the appeal of linking variables together in complex web of interactions. There are currently two main libraries in R to fit such models: lavaan and piecewiseSEM. The aim of this post is not to discuss the advantages and drawbacks of these …

Ploting SEMs in R using semPlot

This is a short post presenting the great package semPlot developed by Sacha Epskamp (check out his nice website: http://sachaepskamp.com/) to make nice plots from your SEMs. SEMs are a modelling tool that allow the researcher to investiguate complex relationships between the variables, you may find here many links to free tutorials: http://www.structuralequations.org/. Here I …