Faculty

Professors | Lecturers | Affiliate | Postdoctoral Fellows | Emeritus

ISU Panorama. Photo by Chuck Peterson.

Professors

Ken Aho, Ph.D.

Professor
Community Ecology & Statistics

Office: Life Sciences 419

Research

Lab: Life Sciences 418

Aho Lab

Foundational and Applied Statistics for Biologists Using R

Much of Dr. Aho's research over the last 20 years (as a graduate student and faculty member at Idaho State University) has concerned alpine ecology. This includes the use of classic methods in plant synecology and autecology, and the examination of the effect of invasive mountain goats (Oreomnos americanus) on alpine vegetation, the endophytic communities of whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), and even the microbial communities of the alpine soil and atmosphere.

Teaching

BIOL 2209 - General Ecology

BIOL 3316 - Biometry Lab

BIOL 4408/5508 - Plant Ecology

BIOL 5599 - Advanced Data Analysis

BIOL 6605 - Graduate Biometry

BIOL 6692 Introduction to R programming

Biographical sketch

Dr. Aho became a tenure-track faculty member in the Department of Biological Sciences in 2011. Dr. Aho currently teaches and conducts research in statistics and ecology. His work in biostatistics has resulted in the pedagogic R software package asbio and the textbook: "Foundational and Applied Statistics for Biologists Using R". His work in community ecology has been both theoretical (e.g., confidence intervals for ratios and products of binomial proportions) and practical (e.g., reclamation of ponderosa pine steppe following coal mining). Dr. Aho enjoys playing guitar, skiing, rock climbing, and spending time with his wife Jessica (an entomologist) and son Olavi (named after his Finnish grandfather).

Education

2007, M.S. Environmental and Ecological Statistics, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT

2006, Ph.D. Biology, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT

1995, B.S. Biology, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID

2007-2011, Postdoctoral fellow, Alpine plant ecology in the context of exotic mountain goats, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID

Selected publications

Aho, K., Derryberry, D., Godsey, S. E., Ramos, R., Warix, S.*, Zipper, S. 2023. Communication distance and Bayesian inference in non-perennial streams. Water Resources Research.59(11)

doi: 10.1029/2023WR034513

Aho, K., Kriloff, C., Godsey, S. E., Ramos, R. Wheeler, C.*, You, Y., Warix, S., Derryberry, D., Zipper, S., Hale, R. L., Bond, C. T.*, Kuehn, K. A. 2023. Non-perennial stream networks as directed acyclic graphs The R-package streamDAG. Environmental Modelling and Software. (167): 105775. doi: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2023.105775

Whiting, J., Aho, K., Doering, B. 2022. Can acoustic recordings of cave-exiting bats in winter estimate bat abundance in hibernacula? Ecological Indicators. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108755

*student author