McDonald Data Sciences Blog

Notes on R, environmental statistics, and what I’m learning along the way

I write here about R, environmental statistics, and the projects I’m working on. Have a look around.

Field crew on the tower of a research vessel scanning for sea turtles in Florida Bay

New Publication: 19 Years of Sea Turtle Monitoring in Florida Bay

Projects
Sea turtles
Publications

Our new paper in Endangered Species Research presents a long-term look at sea turtle abundance and survival in a key Florida foraging habitat.

Jul 6, 2026

What is Data Science?

Misc

A statistician’s perspective on data science and what it takes for organizations to make it work.

May 20, 2026
Trent McDonald

Rdistance v4.4.3 on CRAN now

Bug fixes for Rdistance are on CRAN
R
Distance Analysis
Publications
Version 4.4.3 of Rdistance contains critical bug fixes.
May 14, 2026
Trent McDonald

UW CEPS Hall of Fame Induction

Misc
I was honored to accept induction into the UW’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences (CEPS) Hall of Fame at their awards banquet 25 April 2026. This post records the…
Apr 29, 2026
Trent McDonald

Rdistance v4.4.0 on CRAN now

Enhancements to distance analysis package Rdistance are on CRAN
R
Distance Analysis
Publications
A new version of Rdistance, version 4.4.0, is on CRAN now. Since I last blogged on Rdistance (May 2025), many updates, bug fixes, and enhancements have taken place. This…
Apr 22, 2026
Trent McDonald

Mirrored Histograms in ggplot

R
In 2023, I (Trent) posted an R method for mirrored histograms. Mirrored histograms are great for comparison of proportions, or counts, across two or more samples. The…
Jul 22, 2025
Jason Carlisle and Trent McDonald

Rdistance v4.0.3 on CRAN now

Major overhaul of distance analysis package Rdistance is on CRAN
R
Distance Analysis
Publications
A new version of Rdistance, version 4.0.3, is on CRAN now. This version of Rdistance represents a major overhaul and improvement in workflow. Among other things, the changes…
Mar 29, 2025
Trent McDonald

Aleutian Tern Surveys Begin

2024 Aleutian tern surveys in southern Alaska begin today.
Projects
Aleutian terns
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and I are happy to announce initiation of the 2024 Aleutian tern surveys.
Jun 4, 2024
Trent McDonald

finFindR: Top 10 ‘Most Cited’ Marine Mammal Science Papers

Fin matching paper among top 10 most cited articles in Marine Mammal Science during 2022 and 2023
Marine Mammals
Image Recognition
Publications
Wiley reported today that our paper, finFindR: Automated recognition and identification of marine mammal dorsal fins using residual convolutional neural networks, is one of…
Apr 24, 2024
Trent McDonald

Zoom To Point

Center native R plots of spatial objects on a point, and use a specified zoom level
R
Spatial
Native R plots (using plot) are quick and easy ways to check spatial objects. Native R plots, however, are static and changing the plot extent (zooming or panning) is not…
Jan 4, 2024
Trent McDonald

Double Observer Surveys: Post 1

Full Independence and Equal Sightability
R
Distance Analysis
Double-observer line-transect surveys estimate the abundance of targets (e.g., targets could be birds, bears, bats, bees, etc.) in an area. Double-observer line-transect…
Oct 12, 2023
Trent McDonald

Extracting Tracks from KML

GPS tracks from KML via XML
R
Spatial
XML
R is amazing at geospatial analysis. Most geospatial objects import easily. Some objects from some formats do not. This post is about importing a GPS track from the Keyhole…
Jul 24, 2023
Trent McDonald

Permutation Tests

Nearly bomb-proof tests for arbitrary distributions and measurements
R
Computer Intensive
Permutation tests are powerful, almost bomb-proof, multi-sample statistical tests. Permutation tests are not widely taught, and most internet pages on the subject are…
Jul 10, 2023
Trent McDonald

Rdistance is back on CRAN

Distance analysis package Rdistance is back on CRAN after an extended hiatus
R
Distance Analysis
Rdistance, a package for line and point transect distance analysis, is back on CRAN after a 2-year hiatus. Rdistance has always been available on Github. Now, it passes all…
Jun 23, 2023
Trent McDonald

Mirrored Histograms

R
Mirrored histograms are excellent for comparison of proportions. Proportion comparison is at the heart of habitat analysis and I use them often.
Mar 11, 2023
Trent McDonald

Package Initiation

Steps to create an empty package
R
R Packages are awesome. Here, I show you how to initiate a clean new package. Why I initiate things this way is beyond the scope of this post. A more complete description of…
Mar 11, 2023
Trent McDonald
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