4 - An Overview of the Structure and Use of HMSC

Summary

This chapter provides an overview of the Hierarchical Modelling of Species Communities (HMSC) framework. For this, HMSC is first placed in the context of the widely applied generalised linear mixed modelling. Next, we outline the statistical structure of HMSC and the notation that is used throughout the book. This chapter also introduces the conceptual theoretical framework under which HMSC has been developed, showing how environmental filtering, contingencies on species traits and phylogenetic relationships and biotic filtering are modelled at multiple spatial or temporal scales. Then the five steps of the HMSC analysis workflow are illustrated. As the chapter aims to give a quick overview, it does not fully cover every statistical feature or the details about how different components of the HMSC model can be used for addressing specific study questions in community ecology. These will be covered in the remaining chapters of the book, where HMSC is built step by step, related to ecological theory and illustrated through examples.