[R-sig-eco] Boosted regression trees

[Sam Veloz]

The code they provide is really easy to use and so far I have gotten 
great results. Does require a little of work though because you do have 
optimize several parameters, which they discuss in the paper. Also, 
because you are often running >1000 iterations, running each model takes 
much longer than a glm for example. So far with my work I have found 
better predictive accuracy using boosted regression trees vs GLM's or 
multi adaptive regression splines.

Sam

twilding wrote:
> This paper came out recently - a guide to boosted regression trees for 
> ecologists. Great potential for modelling species distributions from 
> environmental data I think.
>
> http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2008.01390.x
>
> Well written (even I can understand it) and code for R is given with 
> tutorials. Example for freshwater fish given. The method's non-linear. It 
> doesn't produce nice smooth curves, but that seems to be it's strength as no 
> prior assumptions are made about how the species should respond. I haven't 
> tried it yet. Interested to hear what sort of results people get.
>
> Thomas Wilding
> Department of Biology
> Colorado State University
> Fort Collins
> Colorado 80523-1878
> USA
> (+1 970) 491 2414
>
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>
>   


-- 
****************************************************
Sam Veloz
Graduate Group in Ecology
Department of Wildlife Fish and Conservation Biology
UC Davis
sdveloz at ucdavis.edu