Ken Aho | Idaho State University

Faculty

Professors | Lecturers | Affiliate | Postdocs | Emeritus

Professors

Ken Aho, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Community Ecology & Statistics

Office: Life Sciences 419

(208) 282-3391

Research

Lab: Life Sciences 418

Aho Lab

Foundational and Applied Statistics for Biologists Using R

We study biostatistics and community ecology.

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 for 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

Jimenez-Sanchez, C., Hanlon, R., Aho, K., Powers, C., Morris, C. E., Schmale III, D. G. In press. Diversity and ice nucleation activity of microorganisms collected with a Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) in France and the United States. Frontiers in Microbiology. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.01667

Derryberry, D., Aho, K. Peterson, T. 2018. Model selection and regression t-statistics. The American Statistician doi: 10.1080/00031305.2018.1459316

Moler, E., Aho, K. 2018. Community properties of foliar fungal endophytes in relation to white pine blister rust in whitebark pines of the Southern Cascades, USA. Fungal Ecology 33: 104-114. doi: 10.1016/j.funeco.2018.02.003

Hill, R., Loxterman, J., Aho, K. 2017. Insular biogeography and population genetics of dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium americanum). Ecosphere. 8(5): e01810 doi: 10.1002/ecs2.1810

Aho, K., Derryberry, D., Peterson, T. 2017. A graphical framework for model selection criteria and significance tests (refutation, confirmation and ecology). Methods in Ecology and Evolution. 8(1): 47–56. doi: 10.1111/2041-210X.12648

Zorio, S. D., Williams, C. F., Aho, K. 2016. Sixty-five years of change in montane plant communities in Western Colorado, USA. Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research 48(4): 703-728. doi: 10.1657/AAAR0016-011